9 ways to heal from Narcissistic Abuse

hi my name is aletta meyer some people on this channel may know me from my appearance in the documentary on narcissistic abuse after producing the documentary i've received many many emails from people and a lot of these emails contain questions and i just thought why not make a little video do a little update and just pick one subject and today my subject is healing so i'm not gonna say i know it all because i'm just one of those people but i think i may be able to inspire a little bit or at least share with you what lessons that i've learned and well if i can help one person with this video then my mission is accomplished so i've just made a little list of things that i thought really worked for me and were absolute great lessons for me so um the first big lesson for me was knowing that my body can only heal when it feels safe so whether it be the emotional side or the physical side this one was a huge one for me because i remember trying to heal myself while still being in that relationship and it's like taking in poison every day and still hoping you get better it just doesn't work so the first thing is to actually get out of that situation leave the narcissist so once i left that man i was still stuck with complex ptsd and me i was having flashbacks panic attacks and my stress levels were going through the roof not to mention my ex who was doing a smear campaign behind my back so i had to learn how to trust again to learn how to cope with a body that has changed so much during that relationship and to learn how to take care of myself on a different level [Music] it was important for me to realize that the longer i had been in an unsafe situation the longer it would take for me to get back to good health there's no quick fix for trauma and sometimes it was frustrating as i was working so hard on myself it feels to me that i need to have enough good experiences again for my body to be convinced that it's different this time and that's why i know it takes time it takes for me to be conscious of my triggers to learn how to deal with triggers and to calm my own body down and for that reprogramming to happen i need to be patient [Music] so the worst part about abuse or complex ptsd or whatever the case is the feeling that you are the only one going through it so for a long time i have felt like i was on this lonely island far away from the rest of the world so part of my healing journey was to talk to people to open up about my story whether it in friendships or on forums and finally producing that documentary it is knowing you're not alone knowing you're not weird or crazy knowing you're not the only one suffering we are all part of something bigger than us it is so important to find the right people to talk to because if you talk to people who don't know much about narcissism they may tell you that it takes two to tango or that you should just talk it out and these people are unknowingly gaslighting you or pushing you back into that abusive situation so talking to the people who actually know and understand what narcissistic abuse is is so important and validating for you because the first step to feel better is to get out of that confusing state another one that really helped me was meditation i know meditation is a huge hype at the moment but it has truly truly helped me when you're in a situation like this chronically for most of your life that means that your body has been tense like this and we all know like the more stressed out intense you get like the more easy it is for disease to pop up into your body so knowing that stress kills the body and you can impossibly heal your body when you are in a situation of stress that's why for me meditation worked tremendously even though i feel like i may have overdone it with three hours of meditation on a daily basis i still think it was a really good thing to do because at least i knew like three hours of my day i'm not in that very high stress for three hours a day i'm putting my body into a situation of healing and rest and you know recharging that battery everybody's talking about boundaries but i never realized i had weak boundaries until i actually had strong boundaries as a child i was never taught boundaries and coming from an abusive household i grew up with a very high tolerance for abuse so instead of developing good boundaries i learned how to be a people-pleaser and i'm sure this is what has set me up for abuse later in life so when i was in a relationship with a narcissist i saw the similarities with the abuse i suffered as a child and when i broke up i promised myself to not enter a new relationship again until this pattern was broken and solved and so i stayed single for three years and those three years were extremely important for me because for once i was not focusing on what a partner needed or how he was feeling no the focus was on me what i needed for myself and that's where i learned boundaries and when i entered a new relationship it felt a little bit like a trial and error at first as sometimes i would fall back into the old pattern of people pleasing i was afraid that he was going to dismiss my boundaries or use them against me like the narcissist did when i would stand up for myself i mean we're talking trauma here but my new partner didn't and having boundaries and being allowed to express them is what has made our relationship stable we both know exactly what we need to be happy and we respect each other's boundaries and feelings [Music] it may sound like a strange one but it's especially relevant for well for me it was for my me and maybe for one of you guys who also suffer some health issues when i was diagnosed with me basically everybody i talked to know with good intentions they all had good intentions they all had something to say about my illness like you need to do this therapy or you need to do that or this person i know was magically healed or whatever the story is and um this is why the first few years of my me diagnosis i went from this therapy to another and this diet to another and um even though they may have helped to some degree all of them then i may have done something but i was not getting better and my gut feeling was basically screaming at me like oh i need a rest come on you know and when i started to listen to that that's when i healed and so that to me is um yeah something that helped me very much in my healing process is to tap into my own intuition i had to really learn to trust my intuition and also in a situation of narcissistic abuse again going back to the subject is when you've been in an intimate situation of narcissistic abuse for a long time you may have lost that deeper contact with yourself and your intuition because the first thing a narcissist will try to do especially through guest lighting for instance is to break that bond with your intuition and when you cannot trust your intuition or your own thoughts or your own feelings anymore then the narcissist has so much more control over you so the first thing that was for me that i found out after you know doing all of these therapies is like oh my god no no no i'm so used to listening to other people and to please other people i need to listen to my gut feeling and do what my inner self tells me how to heal [Music] okay the next thing i want to say is to just have as many happy times as possible and i know that it may even sound a little bit mean just to say to a traumatized person you just go have some happy times huh you know but i know how confused i was and i know how hurt and traumatized i was coming out of this situation of narcissistic abuse i was in the midst of a smear campaign and i had absolutely no idea how to trust but one thing that i did realize at the time is i need a break i need a break from this high anxiety in my body and i was lucky enough to have some people around me who were new i had i just made new friends and it was quite exciting to be around new people new energy and i really felt that i had to find my happiness in small moments so what i've done is i went into a different environment for two weeks i found these friends i talked to my friends and even though i knew they did not understand me on a deeper level they were still listening and understanding to a degree and to me it made me feel validated and that was really important just to talk to people and spending time with my son spending time in nature it's all of those little things combined that for me every time it was like giving myself this little break out of that trauma so why i'm saying this about happy times is one because it really saved me at that time and two is because you need to build yourself up and the best way to build yourself up and your self-confidence is to actually do something that strengthens your system and your self-esteem and your self-worth like yes i can have a good time this is me i feel myself again that is so important after you've gone through this okay so as survivors of narcissist we all know how important this one is because we all know how draining it can be to be around the narcissist they just literally suck the life out of you so um it is really good to realize what type of people are good for you and what type of people are not and to me the people who are right for me are the people who make me feel good on the inside so that means the people who i can laugh with but can talk with and they accept me for who i am and i can be myself around regardless of how i feel because how good is a friend if you are only supposed to have happy times with them and and you can't say how you really feel or um why do some people make you feel drained or why do you always feel energized after seeing that one person these are questions i had to ask myself and um when you really connect to your inner self you will you know exactly what people make you feel good and i have to i have to comment on this uh we all go through bad phases sometimes so everybody can be draining at times but there's a huge difference in people whose energy is like chronically draining or people who are have like a temporary situation going on and can be draining just for a moment you know this is a really important distinction to make but i say this for the people who are like chronically draining to you these well at least for me this was my lesson to just not have those people in my life because i had to prioritize myself i needed my energy so anybody who was just basically stealing my energy away was was was not good for me because i had and i have still have to a degree uh m.e um i was forced to be alone a lot but um yeah looking back it was really well it finds it feels a bit strange to say because i still have i find it very hard at times you need to have me it's not easy but i it also has um yeah it has taught me such valuable lessons and this alone time that i've had because of my me um has changed me in such a way that i now know what is good for me i know i now know my triggers i know what takes my energy from me and what i do usually is i write in my diary i reflect i talk to myself i go for walks if i can and i ask myself these questions like what is important for me what type of people that are important for me when do i get energy when do i lose energy when do i get overwhelmed and why do i get overwhelmed and these questions are really really important in my healing process these are like basic questions that i just need to know because otherwise i just keep falling into the same traps oh i'm overwhelmed it's like i have to know what overwhelms me and what gives me energy so um that's what alone time has given me like a lot of like in a research and then um another big thing for me is like i had to come off my screen time because it's quite easy to say okay i spent my evening alone when you just been watching netflix i had to literally come off everything no phones no tv just me myself and i and those are the times that i learned the most and to me especially being overwhelmed so quickly it's just very valuable time just to recharge that battery especially when you're in nature it's like you recharge that battery and um yeah that's that's another thing that that helped me a lot sometimes i say you know even though i hate what happened in that relationship um in a way i'm grateful for the lessons i've learned there because i needed to go through the process and through all the pain just to understand and basically like reprogram myself as well i had to understand what was going on to know and to understand how to do it better the next time so all i want to say basically with this is just be patient and celebrate every little thing ever you know every little milestone you know like oh my god i've learned this lesson oh my god i can't do this better now you know oh my god i feel much safer this is what i'm trying to do just celebrate those little moments and celebrate every step up because my health is doing better and better and better every time and so i know my healing process it is working it just takes time so basically don't give up [Music] you

Channel: Aletta Meijer

Views: 38,935

Keywords: Narcissistic Abuse, healing from narcissistic abuse, 9 ways to heal from narcissistic abuse, Aletta Meijer, Healing from ME / CFS, heal yourself, narcissistic abuse documentary, surviving narcissists and psychopaths, survivors of narcissistic abuse, narcissism, narcissistic abuse healing, gaslighting, narcissistic, abuse, complex ptsd, healing from complex ptsd

Id: VDzFz5IaujY

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 31 2021