How To Heal Your TRAUMA & MOVE ON After Narcissistic ABUSE | Dr. Ramani

you want to stick it to a narcissist succeed that's it you stuck it to them if you can think of revenge as you being your best self that shuts everybody down it's not the hope that the narcissist will get better it's not the hope that next time you know the next narcissist i'll figure it out no it's the hope is around you are a better navigator of your own life and you had the wisdom to extract the lessons from this really difficult experience welcome to the show you guys are wrong i feel like it's great to see you always backed by popular demand girl oh thanks the first time we sat down together we spoke about identifying narcissistic traits then the second time we sat down together we went over communicating with narcissists which was very well received and in those comments i wanted to really see what is the thing that they wanted after that like what was the thing that we didn't fulfill and the thing that kept coming up is how to then act once you realize that the person is a narcissist and you've communicated and now you want to leave yeah okay and so i'd love to actually read a proverb that you said um to get lost is to learn the way yeah so i really want to start there because i feel like when people are feeling lost they almost don't know where to go yep listen think about school if the teacher just said here's two plus two here's four times eight and never made the child work the problems they'd never learn math or they if they didn't make them fill out a map of this is the united states this is africa whatever they'd never learned geography at some point we have to do it now when we elevate that to adult relationships we think why did i have to i just went through this i literally got lost i got harmed i i lost people in my life i lost myself i lost my identity what was that all for and i do think in that way these terrible experiences do become a teacher i always tell people it's a balancing act right nobody should ever go out and seek out suffering like i'm going to go get into a narcissistic relationship so i can get lost and learn something no no no no we don't want you to do that and also i think some people feel like a hurry up and heal mentality like okay i'm out of it so now i gotta heal i'm also not behind that grief and giving yourself time to sort of go through the steps regret and rumination and the things that happen after a narcissistic relationship are part of that cycle and i'm never a fan of hurry up and heal because i think some people then having been so bashed by a narcissistic relationship we'll say great now i'm even failing at healing there's no such thing as failing at healing okay each if you're getting up out of bed in the morning even if you're slow and even if it's later than you want you're healing because you have the courage to face down another day okay but that idea of getting lost because we all when these in these narcissistic relationships we get lost that we've learned something the key though lisa the key above everything else is to hold on to that lesson and not naively say well that was just an exception and next time's gonna be different no no no two plus two is always four you know next time it's not going to be five it's always going to be four you've got to learn from this and it's hard because the lessons of narcissistic relationships can feel cynical they can feel painful it can feel like how can i trust anyone and it's not as black and white how can i trust anyone but you're definitely not going to trust people the same way oh okay i really want to go deep on everything you just said because it's so powerful so thinking about the person right now that is feeling lost giving them the hope that look you can get out of it and that's why i really like that quote in the sense of look you may feel lost right now but don't worry it can be a good thing because you can learn from it you will learn from it you will get lost you will learn from it you will learn that you're a better navigator than you thought you may have had to go around that landmark six times you're like i've seen that tree before i'm gonna get out of this because to get lost and then find you you will find the idea of finding the way is that you're you're learning something from this right that and that learning makes you more wise and you are able to see that no there's not something wrong with you it's not you it's really that this happens to all of us it happens to me it happens to you it happens to everybody and that if you can heed those lessons you will then come out of it saying wow now i know how to use this compass now i know how to read this map and that's actually a really there's a certain confidence that comes from that and you could not have learned that lesson unless you've gone through it so the sort of the hope message there is it's not the hope that the narcissist will get better it's not the hope that next time you know the next narcissist i'll figure it out no it's the hope is around you are a better navigator of your own life and you had the wisdom to extract the lessons from this really difficult experience okay i absolutely love that so i'm thinking about now this person is listening that is stuck in this relationship that feels lost that is now now you've just eloquently put of how they can use that to actually better their life and move forward so now i start to think about okay in communicating with somebody whether it's you know a partner as a narcissist and saying okay i finally want to leave right and you've got the courage and now you've listened to dr romney who has said you know okay this is going to be a lesson you build up the confidence you maybe have some words that you're preparing to say to them i actually want to talk about the traps that people may find themselves in because i'm the type of person if i know the traps are coming at least i'm aware of them so that when i'm in there i don't actually get trapped and revert back to the norm of i'm lost i'm a loser i'm in this relationship and there's no way out okay so let's start with talking about the five ways people get stuck in narcissistic relationships even when they're like i know this isn't healthy for me i know this isn't good for me let's talk about the five traps hope fear guilt pity and believe it or not comfort start with hope the hope is this is going to get better maybe if i wait another year maybe if we wait for them to get a promotion maybe if we make a little bit more money hope hope always almost future faking yourself right you keep moving your own goal posts and it doesn't help that they're doing it too they're like give me another year give me those six months i'm going to go to therapy i'm no they're not i just want to highlight that frame you said it's so good future faking yourself so and that's worse than someone future faking you because now you're you're almost like falling into the same vat with them of saying i'm going to give it this much time or maybe after no today you're going to judge today okay so that's the hope the fear people have is the fear of being alone the fear of having to start again the fear of um doing things on their own the fear of what if i'm wrong you know what if they actually do change what if i maybe it was going to happen in six months so there's a lot of fear okay the guilt one thing we talked about in that first episode we did together is not all narcissism is the the big peacock strutting around so grandiose in some cases the narcissistic presentation is really vulnerable it's they're very socially anxious they're always a victim you always need to rescue them so people sort of feel a sense of guilt of like i'm not a mean person i'm a compassionate person i don't want to leave someone when they're down well they're always down so it's never going to be the right time but that last p that piece that comfort piece is challenging too because we really do gravitate to that which is familiar even when it's traumatic and so that idea of trauma bonding you keep having the same arguments but they're familiar arguments that's very much the trauma bond the justifying all the time do you think using sort of magical terms like i don't know it's just something i can't describe why i like them i'm like you can't describe why you like them and you're using all this magical talk then there's something wrong here tell me why you like spending time with this person i know it's a narcissistic relationship with people like i don't know how to describe it it's just like this magic and i don't know how to describe i said you know how to describe it because it's not healthy interesting why is that can you like depress and explain so this is it's a big part of the trauma bonding experience because it's so primal right is really someone going to say you know why i like being in this relationship because they remind me of my invalidating mother and the the the reminder of my invalidating mother is really just such an interesting place for me to work things through they're going to say that right so they're gonna say i don't know how to describe it it feels sort of magical and i'm like oh god no no no magic i want to hear respect kindness compassion similar values similar interest i feel safe i want to hear that stuff okay so all of that stuff though in a trauma-bonded relationship sadly can feel like comfort because familiarity is one of the greatest comforts of all think about it you go back to a hometown even if you never want to live there again there's a comfort in knowing almost intuitively the turns and the road and all of that stuff right we are soothed by comfort it's the phrase the better the devil you know yep and then and the biggest trouble you have basically so all of that stuff keeps people stuck okay but even once people recognize that and they're like no oh despite all of that i'm gonna do the courageous thing i'm gonna step out of this then they step out okay a couple of things happen most classically is the phenomenon of hoovering now hoovering and you know this as a brit is a vacuum right so you know it better than americans americans are like hoovering it's it's a vacuum yeah so it's sucking someone back in and hoovering is a common narcissist tactic now not every narcissist hoover sometimes they move on into their own future thing without you but many times they do it's a power play it's a dominance play it's a way for them to feel in control it's game playing it messes with your mind it's manipulation but hoovering is when the person's left they're already struggling with the hope the fear the guilt the pity the trauma bondedness all of that and then the narcissist i don't know two months out three months out even three days out texts like hey babe i miss you or like been thinking about you and this this sort of the fantasy version that love bombing version of the narcissist sort of starts to emerge again and you think oh yeah i was yeah i was right see hope and in fact some people when they step out enjoy that sense of power of like oh if i step away from them then they become nice again and that's a trauma bond to dance in their relationship out of the relationship in their relationship out of the relationship recognizing that the narcissistic person loves games in relationships they love the chase they love the hoovering cycle so some people really can get very vulnerable to getting sucked back in and almost enjoying the having the narcissist trying to win them over well as soon as they get them back in they discard them it's like a child with a toy they don't really want they just wanted to get it away from their brother their sister right so that hoovering trap is a big one for someone to be resistant to because every trauma bonded cell in their body is saying i want to go back you know and you have to say no no no no no it's almost like don't walk towards the light and this gets like walk the other way whatever the other way is and so that's a huge risk okay but then we have to add into that lisa things like societal pressures and this is where we talk about enabling the enablers to me in many ways are as dangerous as the narcissists the ones are like oh they're not so bad you just got to give them a chance or come on the devil you know and they'll say things that will not only attempt to sort of downgrade the harm the narcissist is doing but then leave the person who wants to step away from the relationship feel shamed foolish like they're making a mistake because that person who's leaving the relationship is already struggling with that so if the enablers are stepping in and they're saying like oh you sure you know what you're doing then there there's already so much doubt in the mind of the person leaving so now those enablers pouring all this new doubt in there and people again there's a lot of shame around that like who am i to think i could step away because narcissistic abuse really undoes a person leaves them feeling like they're not enough leaves them feeling like they're they're full of self-doubt they're confused and they really start believing like who else will have me who cares who else will have you we just want to get you away from that person but the enablers can really do a number on a person as well as society you know like um we're making this episode around the holidays right and so you got to be you can't be alone during the holidays i can't tell you how many people got stuck in narcissistic relationships for another six months because it was the holidays and they didn't want to stay leave because of the holiday and i'm like oh my gosh just go get drunk under a tree somewhere but like please don't let this be why you you you end up signing up for more so you can see that there's it's society it's enablers it's your own demons all of that colludes to make not only leaving but even walking that first block out of the relationship really really difficult i love how you frame it and then also like i would love to get some like real tactics because i'm always that person where like if i'm emotionally not feeling like if i'm feeling vulnerable i need tips and tactics to actually either do or say in those moments to not then just let my heart follow um get hoovered back in basically so i actually want to start with hope because what are the language that people say that narcissists will say to you um to bring back that hope that you can kind of um be wary of that becomes a flag so for instance i know that you've said when someone says to you like oh um don't it's never gonna happen again so things like that what are the things that they're using to um trigger your hope it's never gonna happen again i'm gonna go get therapy give it another give me another six months this has just been a rough time the holidays are tough for me valentine's day is tough for me your birthday is tough for me my birthday is tough so keep lin linking it to anniversary dates holiday dates and say let's just get through this holiday let's just get through the summer let's just get through the fall i'm like okay we've got all four seasons so we're just going through so it's always this idea of let me get through this review at work let me get through this deadline um so in essence you're always being put on ice right that's that future faking but that's how the hope gets cultivated because they're saying like i'm aware there's an issue right so when somebody says that to you i'm aware there's an issue that fosters your hope but basically they're saying and you're not important enough for me to adjust that right now oh my god that's so true and then thinking about i know a lot of women that have been hurt and um are wounded and so they look for that in a partner because they feel needed i can help fix it yeah yeah yeah so even with with the guilt part i think that how does someone work through that that might be one of the hardest things of all to work through right because especially when you're dealing with somebody who's a very manipulative vulnerable narcissist they use their victimization as a tool like oh nothing ever goes my way and life is so unfair to me and you know i can't you know how was ever going to want to be with me now often even a vulnerable narcissist their tactics are interesting they'll even put themselves down like oh if you leave me who's ever gonna want me and if some if they're with somebody and usually vulnerable narcissists are with rescuers and fixers right they're not the big flashy grandiose narcissists these are the ones who are getting very victim very sullen very resentful very angry and brooding and all of that that the rescuers will feel like oh god like this is this per person and so it really is the work then becomes is to say your empathy and compassion are such beautiful things however i want us to take a minute and really list all of the unhealthy patterns in this relationship because what's happening is you're basically staying in something that's noxious that's unhealthy it's almost like being next to like a chemical dump site and smelling in all the chemicals or next to someone who's smoking a cigarette or something and blowing the smoke towards you it's not good for you and so that idea of helping someone see that you can retain your empathy and compassion and you can also preserve yourself and your job on this earth is not to rescue another capable adult that responsibility lies on them wow that was so amazing thank you for that because i really do worry about those situations where people do just take it on themselves as their responsibility and you're 100 right that they'll lock it away like the phrase that came to mind is you you teach people how to treat you and that phrase really hits me and so when i think about things like that it's like you mean so well and that's the thing right people mean well right and that phrase though lisa it's tricky you teach people how to treat you because so many people were never taught how to be treated ah you see what i'm saying so i think that there's a real risk with that one because many people came from homes where they were invalidated as children where they were not valued where they had no empathy shown to them they came from family systems characterized by narcissism and antagonism and high conflict personalities so nobody taught them so this idea they don't know how to teach someone else because they themselves don't know i'm not even going to say they're teaching people one of the key elements to remember about the narcissistic relationship it's why currently the world of mental health is not serving this group of people who's going through narcissistic abuse well we make it all about responsibility and we put all the responsibility on the person going through narcissistic abuse and they're already blaming themselves but the person who's behaving badly really is the narcissistic person right and since the world is telling this person in the relationship maybe you shouldn't leave or everyone deserves second chances or why don't you forgive they're getting that message messaging they themselves are confused they've been gaslighted they've been manipulated they think all of this narcissistic person's behavior is their fault right so you feel like that framing actually they they will take on the blame which obviously doesn't serve them correct yes so i think this idea that they have this person in the narcissistic relationship thinking that they can take all this responsibility and have all this power they actually can't and don't because this is so manipulative and even the mental health profession will say well well what's your role in this i said there this is like saying what someone's role is somebody gets punched in the face and said well does your face really need to be in the way so that's the challenge that's really really the challenge and i think that ultimately the survivor and the experiencer of narcissistic abuse will get their power back but not while they're in the toxic situation we got to get him out a little bit and and that's why therapy with somebody who understands trauma domestic violence narcissistic abuse like therapists who understand those things are often the best in the best position to work with these individuals because the focus is to not blame them but unfortunately a lot of times the conversation is about like well teach them there's not you can't eat they're they're inaccessible they cannot be taught they cannot be anything they're entirely egocentric so even if you try to teach them how you want to be treated they ain't listening because they have no empathy they don't care you're merely an object to get them what they need wow okay so it actually correct me if i'm wrong so you're saying the real healing must happen after you've left the relationship or it has to because again i always want to frame this as not everyone can leave and i don't want anybody watching this to feel like well if i can't leave does that mean i'm never going to heal absolutely not because i completely understand for reasons of money fear culture children there's reasons people feel like they can't leave and those reasons are valid i get i am very mindful of never invalidating the survivor's experience so even if you're still in it there are things that can be done towards healing the key if you leave obviously the more distance and time i'm going to tell you girl there are people who leave these relationships and their head is as much in these relationships as somebody who's physically still in the relationship right whether you're physically in the relationship or physically out you got to get your head out of that game too right people keep giving away all of their precious mental real estate to the narcissist by ruminating by having regrets by looking at social media what are they up to is the next person getting a better version of them no there's only one version it's like narcissist 1.0 it never gets better for the survivors there's 2.0 3.0 4.0 you're going to keep evolving they're always going to be the same version the next person is going to get exactly what you got wow so do you handle then the healing and the same whether you're in or out or is it actually there's different tactics for slightly different but again it's it's really addressing things like addressing things like rumination understanding processes like grief not falling into the the sort of the vortex of what i call euphoric recall euphoric recall is remembering only the good things about the relationship oh my god yes so why do we do that again it's part of the trauma bonded experience because it's the it's the justification and rationalization it actually kind of flies it goes against what our human brain is designed to do the human brain unfortunately is actually uniquely positioned to remember bad stuff more potently than it remembers good stuff that's a survival mechanism that's in our brain so you know if we remember the bad stuff that we remember that was a poisonous plant that's a dangerous ravine there's a tiger over there like we need to remember those bad things so we don't die right so there's an evolutionary piece to that and in fact a lot there's actually a guy named rick hansen who wrote an amazing book called buddha's brain and does a lot of work in this area and he often says like one of the some of his work is on how do we almost retrain the brain to remember the good stuff well in people who've gone through narcissistic relationships this is where the trauma bond creates this interesting hiccup they'll remember bad things about other stuff like being alone but they'll remember the good stuff about this narcissistic relationship it's often an artifact of childhood so for people who had narcissistic or invalidating or high conflict environment childhoods kids really don't have options so they have to tell themselves stories and give themselves rationalizations that somehow this mess that's floating around them is okay well mommy really loves me she's just really busy and daddy really loves me because remember that one day he took me to throw baseball after 200 days of yelling at you you know so they the child has to mine those those good experiences out of it to survive right well that experience and jumps into adulthood that's that trauma bond it's a long-term experience and so in adulthood the more toxic the relationship the more the trauma-bonded person says like but we had that great night in miami or they did get me that nice present that won christmas 30 years ago you know and then they will forget all the abuse yelling and validation gaslighting infidelity lying whatever it is and that's why one of the things i do with people as part of their healing journey is i have them make a list i've colloquially called it the ick list i don't know i call it something else but it's like ick and i said i need you to write down every terrible thing they did to you and if you can't remember it all i need you to call friends i need you to go through your calendar i need you to look up anniversary dates i need every bad thing written down and some people are like i don't want to do this this makes me sick and i said it makes you sick because we're cutting the trauma bonds you have to this is like putting up an ugly mirror in front of you and saying this is what this relationship was and every time you want to go into that euphoric recall i need you to look at that list i actually really like to ask other people like they may have been there because we even if we do address it sometimes because we don't want to actually yeah even like just kind of projecting myself i was in a bad relationship before i met my husband i was young i had never really had a boyfriend before i was teased for my look so finding a guy that liked me was so important and like literally gave me validation gave me the confidence and so it was a very unhealthy relationship so a lot of what you're saying was like oh yeah he did that oh yeah he did that you know you're not going to find anyone that loves you as much as i love you and all of those sorts of things and then starting to think about um i absolutely was like oh my god but he's paid for dinner that one time and he bought me the teddy that one time in four years and i so i totally understand what it feels like to be in that situation um and then just trying to come out of it and break out of what they have taught you i think you call it the infecting what they've infected you with what they've infected you with because it becomes a belief system that you have within yourself and so i'd actually love to really talk about that about how like if at least for myself when i noticed i was in these this relationship afterwards there were triggers that i took with me so how do we start to um tear down that like the triggers that we've built up from this this unhealthy relationship the defense mechanisms that we've built up so that when we go into another relationship that we don't then bring those bad habits that we've built to to protect ourselves that we actually don't do that in the new relationship because it won't serve us so number one something i call the 12-month detox after you leave any form of even approximating a narcissistic relationship you got to be single for a year and i mean single no dating no sex no nothing and people are like why i'll say because when you're in a narcissistic relationship you lose yourself people lose track of their own preferences what they like to watch on tv what they like to eat they've learned to censor themselves so much that they don't know how to uncensor themselves they they forget who they are maybe they never even learned it in the first place a lot of people very quickly want to get into another relationship and the quicker they do that then they're not going to do that deep dive figuring out their own inner worlds and then they're going to literally reproduce that cycle with the next person unless you get super lucky and the next person you meet is just a superstar kind loving person but i got to tell you if you haven't worked out all that trauma bonded stuff you're probably going to look at the super kind person and say kind of boring not very interesting and actually start poking holes in them because they're not evoking that trauma bonded sort of sizzle if you will that year alone to me is everything because i want a person to go through a year of holidays birthdays anniversaries the leaves churning color snow falling rain falling and have to experience that on their own their own experience of it not someone telling them about it not someone making fun of them about it i want you to go out to dinner alone and order what you want and people like oh my gosh this feels so lonely and then i tell them does it because i want you to remember when you sat in this restaurant and they were sitting there and humiliating you does this dinner feel better because i'm guessing it does but you want to romanticize that night you were there with them but let's really talk about what that was god that is so true and i i almost call it a trauma tour but i do think that for me like sort of like i would love to take some of my clients to the places that have caused them the most harm i actually remember working with one person who her um her former partner would make fun of certain dishes she cooked and she loved making them and she and so i said you're going to make a meal of all the foods he hated and have a bunch of people over and eat it she did one person was telling me he they were the partner they had a next partner who hated films with subtitles like this is the stupidest thing and this person happened to love i know it was french films or something like that i said you need to have a french film festival and like every night you're gonna watch french films but it's even little things like asking people to pay attention they'll say oh i feel so lonely in the airport or i so feel so lonely in the hotel room i'm like okay so because as a therapist you kind of have to have a really steel trappy kind of mind and say i do remember two years ago you telling me how he screamed and humiliated you all the way down the concourse as you walked to your gate and then yelled at the gate agent which completely embarrassed you do you remember that now tell me how this airport experience feels like i'm actually having a really good airport experience yes you are that's the breaking the shrama bond i love it the trauma tour you say yeah the trauma tour like i i for people who can do so safely and i mean this and i almost shouldn't use the word trauma i think almost like the discomfort tour because i never wanted because i know for some people trauma might be physical assault and things like that might require more help to go to those places but if it was something more like psychological abuse like you're being humiliated yelled at um i remember once you know i had been in a narcissistic kind of a situation and the person really really really um just uprated me and humiliated me in this bar i've never gone back and i've driven by it and actually felt sick and i thought to go into that bar maybe with a bunch of friends and i would say to someone like let's say it was a restaurant you went to and that's the place you learned that your husband was cheating on you your wife was cheating on you that it was there that you had the conversation about um how they lied to you about this or they screamed at you i'd like to see you go back to that restaurant with your best buddies or go alone if you feel up to it but go with someone you feel safe with and have the best time it's a way to sort of feel like i'm taking my life back but all of that has to be done not in a relationship there's something very unique about the intimate relationship that pulls for all that trauma bonded stuff a lot of people don't like this guidance in fact some people have said up to my own clients they're like your therapist is a hack like you need to go out there and fall in love you need a rebound person i don't i really don't believe it i think people have been through narcissistic relationships they that solitude is so healing this isn't about loneliness this is about you recognizing you're such a great person to spend time with and you were told for years that you're not and i and and it takes people a minute and it doesn't mean not friends i mean you won't do things with friends in fact a lot of people when their narcissistic relationships get isolated from friendships they get isolated from beloved family members reconnect with them it's almost like some of the processes you see even in 12-step programs like to make amends sometimes it's not about necessarily making amends but saying i've been terrible about being in touch i was in this abusive relationship whatever can i'd love to can we start again some people might say no like you disappeared years ago and that's part of the wound of the of the people you lose but many people say of course and you start recognizing like wow i can laugh out loud with this friend my ex person used to criticize me or tell me this friend was no good and you realize this friend always did have your back they were just trying to isolate you so they'd have more power over you so it's about taking your life back to me that time of becoming reacquainted while you're not in a relationship is where you find out that your legs can stand on their own and then when that next person comes around and says i don't like subtitles and you say well then this isn't going to work for me yeah that's interesting um so actually as you were talking i was wondering so that restaurant thing i actually totally understand you get like the anxieties you're like driving past because it just brings up the memories and so i love to like go with your friend have a great time do you actually advise though when you're there to talk about what happened there or is it like i actually shouldn't i want you to have fun i i mean i think that you'll have an internal process of looking around you might even think like think about it like let's say let's say this is a restaurant okay you and i are like and we're having an abusive relationship maybe during that abusive like you screaming at me and gaslighting me and yelling at me and whatever i fixated on that tree in the corner because that's what a lot of people do and the narcissist is like just psychologically banging them up they'll often they i've seen this happen a lot the person just sort of focuses on something else and they're just sort of staring at the tree of the wall now unless you go back to that restaurant you see that tree it may really bring up some strong feelings for you because that's the tree you were staring out of the wall or the decoration or whatever it's okay it's okay if it feels okay to talk about it talk about it it is gone that thing that harmed you that person's not in the restaurant with you anymore your feelings will not kill you they will not break you trust them to flow through you like your your memory systems are holding on to something and you can look at that tree and say i remember this and you can self-talk and say they're not here anymore they're not saying these things to me anymore i'm here i'm safe you can say those things out loud and have a friend with you there that can won't say like what are you doing who are you talking to and say like have that person be there or do it alone you know i've done that i've been in situations like no one's yelling at me right now wow this is really i'll be i would walk into an airport talking to myself so maybe people will be judging me and i'm sure they are but i've done that but in that situation who cares right you're working on yourself yeah and i'm like i'm good i'm safe no one's yelling at me now yeah and you're like wow sometimes i've even cried you know is that like catholic you're letting it go and and i've i've seen people have said like whether it's cooking all the dishes they didn't like or watching the movie they wouldn't want you to watch or just laughing with friends in a silly way or whatever celebrating on a holiday in a specific way that you it's important not that you just do it but you stop and realize pay attention to how different it feels to be doing this without someone screaming at you humiliating you berating you and devaluing you my god yeah like as you're talking i remember actually it really hit me when you were saying it that there were certain clothes that my ex-boyfriend used to have a heart attack basically calling me like a because i was wearing shorts you know and things like that so of course you then don't wear them because you're like i but i love him i want him to love me too and so it's just a pair of shorts right and so that of course is never just a pair of shorts um and i actually remember when i finally broken up broke up with them being like can i wear those and it was like the hesitation yeah because he had so trained me to think you can't wear them correct and i'm so glad you brought that up because that idea of controlling what someone wears controlling their makeup and all that that's actually a really dangerous dynamic it's a very abusive dynamic a very controlling dynamic and so a if that's happening to someone someone's like you have to dress this way that to me is like 50 red flags that you're being abused number one but number two as part of that healing that 12-month process is i'm talking about you go and wear what you want and you but see here's the thing lisa it's not as simple as i'm putting on the shorts i'm putting on the makeup it's paying attention to how you feel like i can wear my shorts i'm out in my shorts no one's yelling at me you've got to go through that sequence so now you're like you're creating a new neural pathway you're creating this like i'm wearing shorts and it feels so good to not get yelled at because then you're not romanticizing that's i you know i'm saying that abuse like somebody controlling me okayness you're trying to break all of that way of thinking like i love wearing my shorts or i love wearing my makeup or i love wearing these crazy hangily hanging dangly earrings all kinds of things that people are made fun of for wearing that you're out there and you're like this feels so good to wear these things that i like wearing nobody's making fun of me you have to go through that whole processing sequence it's not just about wearing the shorts it's really being mindful and talking and thinking about even if you're talking to yourself about what it feels like to do that oh my god that's so powerful and it's like is that because you're then rewiring the thoughts that you're having and then over time the more you wear the shorts you keep telling yourself that you're rewiring the narrative it feels good these things are my shoes what i want to wear this is authentically me i feel good in these you know that this is that no one's telling me what to do or how to do it it feels really really good and you take yourself back the more you take yourself back then when you meet people in the future you might focus on things like respect kindness compassion shared interests versus falling into that trauma bonded trap of i have to win them over or you know what i'm saying all the things that like that take you back to childhood of i'm not enough so i have to win this person over and there's one video i recently put out on youtube where i talk about the difference between being desired and cherished and that is a really important distinction that's worth bringing in here so to be desired is like it's love bombing it's dramatic it's it's being chased right and that's all the fairy tales people are raised on to be cherished is to be valued to be respected to have someone keep you safe to have someone be kind with you for somebody to meet you halfway or that sometimes you meet them more than halfway but they're aware of that and they meet you more than halfway it's it's to be again it's safety it's somebody holding you like this like you're so important to me right that's being cherished we are not taught to hold out for that and that's missing from every narcissistic relationship ever i'm so glad you brought that up um what is the language then because you said like you're so important to me that's actually beautiful that makes me feel cherished but even with the value i was like i don't know if i would know the difference between someone like bringing desire to make me feel valued versus bringing me making me feel cherished to feel valued it things like it's it's respect it's um it's valuing your opinion on something it is valuing the things that you want to do even if and if they don't agree with you to disagree with you even respectfully so if you say like hey i want to go to that little christmas tree display in the town that's stupid like what are you for and you're like no like that would be fun like oh come on like let's just go to this cool thing like that's not being cherished like he's like i you're you know you're my princess but i'm not going to some christmas tree thing like i'm i'll take you out to this fabulous restaurant desired like that's like you're my side piece versus if that christmas tree thing's important to you inside that person might be thinking christmas everything but like they want to do that that's cherishing someone just so is desire more physical like outside it's superficial it's it's still on the agenda of the desire does that make sense desire is driven by the person doing the desiring i want you i need you i love you i i i instead of you really want to go see those christmas trees let's bundle up and go see those christmas trees you wow i never realized the difference and it's interesting though because even when you put it like that totally get it but before i heard you say that like i was like yeah i really want to be desired yeah i mean it feels good it's sexy it's hot but you're i mean i know your marriage so i can see if you don't feel comfortable yeah no no i've been in the presence of you and tom tom desires you and cherishes you both and i've seen more of the cherishing from him than the desiring there's a tremendous pride he feels in your presence so when i'm listening to tom talk with you and work three of us are together i see someone who has respect who has admiration who has kindness who has tremendous boundaries he cherishes you if he desire if you can have both well then you hit the wall i wasn't sure if the desire is bad okay you have the desire is great i mean it's fun but as the only game in town it's not going to work yeah that makes complete sense okay i'd love to start you touching it early and you said trust i actually want to talk about trust because i think that again going back to if someone is got the you know the they've listened to you they've really worked on themselves they've got out of this relationship they're looking for someone new they're spending the 12 months by themselves i think the trust thing is actually very important because i think so many people say like i'm so scared to get into another relationship because i'm so scared i'm going to fall back into another relationship with another narcissist right and you hit me with like a side punch one uh in one of your videos where you said it's not just about trusting someone else but people have lack of trust within themselves yeah because what happens is yeah you don't feel like you could trust anyone but you trust your you mistrust your own judgment you're like i'm the idiot who let this person into my life i feel ashamed i let this person in my life so now you view yourself as the problem right you're like damn like i have no judgment and so the the fear is i'm going to make this mistake again right so i i want you the best example i can give is if your house was burglarized okay and you locked the doors and this and that but there was this one little breach so then you get out go out and you spend thousands of dollars on a state-of-the-art alarm system you got 20 cameras and motion sensors and glass breaking this and alarms that can be operated from space and all of that stuff right it's probably more than especially if you live in sort of a really kind nice suburban thing it was just a bad luck of that one window being cracked right we tend to over correct and people in narcissistic from coming from narcissistic relationships they tend to over correct they tend to put up the barbed wire fence and the walls and the fortifications and you know what i tell the people who do that initially that's fine i need you to feel that you have because i think when we say oh you're putting up too many walls i actually had that conversation with someone recently when i was sharing an experience i had they're like well you can't put up so many walls i was like the hell i can't i'll put up all the damn walls i want and that's what i tell my clients you put up all the walls you want you can put up walls you can put up fences you can put up barbed wire and what we're gonna do over time is we're going to help you have trusting experiences and little coil by little coil will take some of that barbed wire down but we'll do it on your time i think that when people need to feel safe we need to help them feel safe instead of judging them as like well you're so cynical and not trusting why they just had they just had their house burglarized and everything was taken if they want 27 alarms on their house then that's on them we don't get to judge that and so people need to do initially what they need to feel safe but i have to say that when a person even a year out of a narcissistic relationship if they're putting this up themselves out even if it's not even just a a romantic partnership it could be a friendship even or a workplace thing that they may throw back fish that are big enough to keep like they may over correct they may actually distance themselves from relationships that actually could have been keepers it's okay it's okay i think it's about giving yourself permission to say okay maybe i i hoisted that red flag maybe it was just a little bit light pink and i called it red it's okay when people are saying they see red flags i want to validate that experience but i've worked with clients who come off of long-term narcissistic relationships and they're very tentative like they're walking on ice and they're not sure if it's thick enough i'll say listen if you fall into icy water you're gonna die and maybe it is thick enough but i'd rather you didn't take that risk so it's a process and so i think people do learn to trust lisa they do um i've seen it happen so i've seen so many people move into healthy romantic relationships marriages amazing workplace situations amazing friendships after coming out of narcissistic relationships there's definitely a world where you do learn to trust again but there's also a learn world where you learn to set boundaries and you give yourself permission to say not okay or i'm not okay with this something that that person could never have done before the narcissistic relationship be getting lost part again that sometimes the getting lost is the only way to learn to say no i'm not doing this like this isn't okay you know or someone will be in a new relationship with someone they keep talking about an ex-partner their form and but yet otherwise they're good they're cool right they're really nice respectful they keep making this mistake and you might say i'm not okay with this so you go work on you but you bringing your ex partner into these conversations all the time something's not resolved for you i like a lot about you but this isn't working for me that for a person who's just coming out of narcissistic abuse feels foreign it's not just about the trust of the other it's about that you have the right to set a boundary and that's about trusting yourself and so does that come first you have to trust yourself before you go out i do i think you do have to trust yourself and i think what happens is after a person's been through a narcissistic relationship they doubt their judgment you see and i'm saying so then you don't trust yourself which is why you have to start accumulating experiences where you're like well that went well and that went well because it's very easy again that idea i was saying we tend to focus on the bad things you may have one messed up narcissistic relationship but 20 that are really working a wonderful respectful kind of like you got most of the relationships in your work life are working well this was one bad thing let's try to break down what happened here but clearly your judgment's great because you have all these other wonderful relationships in your life so we also don't want people to over generalize from the one toxic relationship when they are managing to have good judgment and all their others like i said we tend to internalize the blame on ourselves for the bad behavior of the narcissist oh god yeah that's so true i'm usually the person that's like no you shouldn't be putting up walls you're just gonna be like you're actually just going to do yourself at the surface down the line um but i actually totally hear what you're saying of like look if people need to put freaking barbed wire up they need to feel safe is that the word that you would use then okay so they need to feel safe in order to make that transition i love that so much now explain to me though how do you how would you then start to break it down afterwards because the thing that i worry about is that people then stay there because they're like okay now i've protected myself right i actually don't get dinged anymore right so i'm gonna keep these walls up for the rest of my life because they've worked for me no because they aren't because now you're not in the world anymore right one day you're like it's almost like you're looking out of your barbed wire castle and saying well they seem to be having fun out there and i'm not in the fun right so it's it's the doing it's go so it's starting with small experiences maybe you go to a friend's birthday party and you and your friend has some friends there that you don't know and you have a conference it's a safe place it's your friend's birthday party right it has a finite beginning and a finite end and you have a conversation with somebody new and they tell you and it's maybe just a friendship right they tell you about i don't know their job or their car or this new appliance they bought that you're thinking of getting and you have that conversation this is why journaling becomes important because then you might even write down like met this new person today had a really cool conversation about i don't know an air fryer i really enjoyed it i turns out they're from the same town as my grandmother like and i didn't feel scared a little bit of barbed wire comes down that day right it's a slow process and it does mean that you're right you can't sit forever behind the barbed wire but i don't know that most people want that i think what they want though initially is permission to erect it so that they can slowly take it down over time do you think they need permission to break it down as well yeah i think so too like to say it's okay and some people say i don't know i don't want to meet new people i'm i'm like i'm going through my own difficult time in my life right now so if somebody right now said to me come to come to a party meet a bunch of people in fact a dear friend of me asked me to come to a christmas party the middle of the month and it's an active will for me to go to this i know there'll be many people there i don't know and i'm so i'm really wrecked right now i'm just going through a tough time and um but i said come hell or high water romney you've got to go to that christmas party i don't care if this person happens to live in an absolutely beautiful place too like there's a beautiful view so if i'm feeling overwhelmed i know i can look out to the view and all of that and there's one very very important friend of mine there who i know i feel very safe with her sometimes all it takes is one person as long as i know she's in that room somewhere and i can get her eye contact i'll feel okay but and i know if after an hour i'm overwhelmed i'll leave um but i think it's the doing so that to me it's an act of will i'm like and there's one thing that might throw it off that night but i say even if you show up at nine or ten o'clock at night for 20 minutes you are showing up so you do have to say it doesn't mean i'm gonna walk out of there with a new friend but it's that idea of trusting myself enough that i can go so these are baby steps they're baby steps and so how do you know they're in those moments where you're like actually i'm putting myself in a situation that makes me feel uncomfortable right so i actually shouldn't be putting myself in this situation you know i'm not gonna go to the party because i know it's gonna hurt right so the thing is here like i said one safe person so if this was somebody said come to this event where you don't know anybody oh hell no there is no way like somebody for a lot of people i know i can say for myself you know a lot of people say no if i can i bring someone can so figure out a way to make it seem safer and then also give yourself that escape clause like it's okay if i leave after 20 minutes like there's no problem because you probably won't having all that safety having the friends saying 20 minutes is fine you might just find yourself by the time you have your beverage by the time you have your snack by the time you talk to a few people now it's an hour maybe it's two hours you're like oh that was fine and so i think that it becomes a it's almost like working out you're like i'm gonna not everyone wants to go to the gym not everyone wants to do their workout and say this is my workout i'm gonna go and i'm going to sometimes i even say start with silly small things like you go to the market the grocery store and you actually say to the cashier like how's your day been and they're like oh they're usually quite surprising oh that day's been okay okay great are you enjoying the holiday season they're safe people because that whole interaction is going to take two minutes you get in you get out but you got to flex that sort of social muscle there's lots of ways you can do it in low stakes settings i think that's really yeah the low stakes settings and i love that you have a game plan i'm that's exactly what i'm all about because i can't get out of my own head very often so it's like i need a game plan so just like you said it's like okay i know there's gonna be one safe person there i know there's gonna be a view that if i get over anxious i like looking at it i like looking at it i've given myself permission to be able to leave absolutely in 20 minutes you don't have to stay like that is so beautiful to allow people because you're 100 right many of us can't don't want to go to a certain and then when you're there you're like oh my god this is this was great and what was i worried about because you get in your own head yep that's right that's right and you know again you're 20 minutes in you're like this is horrible get it leave and then you learn and say what was so horrible did you push yourself too fast on that night were there people there that were making you uncomfortable was it all couples and you were the only person alone so that means next time assess that kind of event you go to maybe needs to be more of a mixed crowd are you don't are you not as good at night maybe your social event will be better for you during the day like pay attention again this is where you're not doing this in a vacuum writing things down journaling is not just today i had eggs for breakfast and i feel sad that's not it at all it's really looking at these accumulated experiences and saying tonight i went to a get-together i didn't want to go but then that one person who was talking about their trip to antarctica that i've always wanted to take that actually ended up being i learned so much from that person and it was really nice to talk to somebody and actually not feel scared that's a baby step so it could be even things like um uh make a make a note in a journal of a successful social experience you had that day just one i greeted the post the person delivering the mail and um asked them if they're having a good day i went to my sister's house and i met her neighbor and we had a great 20 minute conversation um i we i was in the office was when our first days not remote and i actually went in and was able to catch up with the receptionist it could be the biggest or smallest things but you can see that like okay i'm not this barbed wire person i actually am kind of in the world but i also am continuing to keep myself safe but i think it's easy for a person to say oh i'm so closed off to the world like no you talk to the post person you talk to your sister's friend you talk to the receptionist at work it's a process so i think sometimes when you can see that cumulated progress like i actually did talk to someone every day i did have a nice conversation every day where i wasn't totally on guard you start to realize that you you're not you don't have to pathologize yourself as this closed off untrusting person but it's the um instead of calling it untrusting maybe we can use words like wise or being willing to honor my instincts or acknowledge red flags i mean i'm the first person lisa who will be willing to leave a dinner party if i'm offended by people's antagonism like and it's been a long time since we've had those gatherings but i will say you know what i'm so sorry and i'll make up a white lie like i have a call from someone i've got a jumper i'm having a stomachache to get myself out like that's something for me in the years after different episodes of narcissistic abuse to give say you're allowed to set the boundary to get out i'm not good like to give you a personal example i'm not good at setting direct boundaries with a person but i am good at pulling myself out of unsafe situations and so that's where i practice my boundary setting and then over time i've gotten a little bit better at setting it with other people directly but that's still more of a challenge so at least i'm learning to say okay romney you may not be able to like boom set this line in the sand with this person but that doesn't mean you have to sit here quietly and endure an uncomfortable situation you can give yourself permission to leave and it ain't your job to school that person anyhow love that because that's the thing like we just get when we get in our own heads well i can't do this oh i can't leave i can't defend this person yeah um and it's funny because like when you're just like yeah and i'll just tell a little white lie like i love how you're just like look if i'm if this is toxic i will get out of it even if i have to do the little lie and i don't want to hurt someone like i don't want to say i hate your friends and that's why i'm leaving your dinner party because that's the truth yeah right you know these are the most horrible people i've ever met rather it's to say oh i mean again as a psychologist you always have not like i'm so sorry i have this client it's having this emergency and i really want to go deal with this or my child needs me you know and then do me feel less guilty i'll call my kid on the way i'm like how you doing like why are you calling us you're supposed to be at dinner but um it's uh yeah i mean i don't wanna because i think that to me the alternative to say i think your friends are hateful people not great and then next time they invite me to that party those people will be there i'll just say no from the junk you know again honoring that boundary for myself instead of saying i'm going to white knuckle this and show up to something i that i know will not feel good yeah i love that i love how you set boundaries and you're just so clear it's so beautiful um one thing i heard you talk about that i really want to go into is revenge so once you've left a relationship talk about revenge yeah so revenge to me is not meant to be like i'm gonna stalk you i'm going to publicly humiliate you i'm going to you know i'm going to set you up no it's i am not a fan of vindictive revenge i am a fan of revenge through you succeeding as well as you can and that doesn't mean you have to go and start your own company or you have to go and save the world it could literally be that your revenge is you found your bliss you found your happiness you found your rhythm you got the cat you always wanted or the dog you always wanted or took the night class you always wanted to me revenge is you taking yourself back because what the narcissist wants to see either a they don't care what happens to you or b they'd like to see that because you know a lot of people do after narcissistic relationships especially on social media they'll be like uh you know it sure is hard to spend saturday night alone like they'll be the people leaving those relationships will sometimes sort of like sort of in an unskilled way but like is there anybody out there and i'll say either don't post anything at all or if you feel the need to post something say like i'm so excited because i'm going to be watching my favorite movie tonight or you know i just watched this show and would love you know like you're in your life and and that sometimes that revenge does come through you succeeding brilliantly but it has to be something for you if you can think of revenge as you being your best self that shuts everybody down so it's not about the other person that literally is about you it's about you that's how you get it and so it's a very because i always say to person you want to stick it to a narcissist succeed that's it you stuck it to them because now their whole narrative is you're a loser and the only way anything's going to happen if you stick close to me or in fact i'm getting rid of you because you're a loser right that's there there's this contemptuous like pushing people away but narcissistic people are very interested in successful people so if you become successful now they can't have you anymore there's a little bit of revenge there i mean i can't tell you how many people when i set out to start my own business don't be silly who leaves academia that's ridiculous what are you doing worked out god i love that and like one of my favorite quotes is um the best revenge is on mitigated success now whether it's success in yourself exactly but it's so true in the sense of i used to think about my ex and be like i'm going to show him yes but it was very toxic right it was the it was dark energy um until i was like you know what and other people have definitely stabbed me in the back and the people that have not necessarily in a relationship but have very much done me wrong and they know it and i know it there's no secret they definitely serve me in the back very openly and i was so angry so vivid that's normal and then in that moment though like after like a day later i was like okay i know this anger doesn't actually serve me and putting it towards them actually doesn't serve me to get better and only actually fuels them because they know they got to me and so now actually my reaction is exactly what exactly so it's the anti-revenge yes it's a yes like you're literally saying you know you're serving it up on it to them yeah and so in that i i then had to work on myself of letting go with the of the dark energy but actually leaving just enough yeah to push myself to be freaking unstoppable oh yeah you know i i've told i've told this story there was once somebody i had worked with super narcissistic person very disrespectful very unkind and i've talked about this i think in a video too basically the person was you know their their take on me was i had entered a position you know after graduate school and i wasn't done with what's called my dissertation it's like our big final piece of work to get our doctorate it's a pretty monstrously large demanding piece of work that you can sometimes take years and so i took this position and he said and he's like oh so when are you going to get your dissertation done and i'm like oh i hope to get it done by january and he's like that's a joke there's no way someone like you is going to get it done by january i was like mean so and he was such a mean guy it was mean to everyone but it was such a mean thing lisa i said i don't care if i don't sleep for the next four months i am getting that dissertation done january 17th of that year i defended that dissertation was a brilliant defense it went swimmingly i had the most amazing committee of people who who evaluated my dissertation and then on january 18th i went into work and he's like oh hey romney i'm like that's dr devasa i kind of got in trouble for saying conservative time but i oh hell no i was not going to let that man i and you know what in a sick twisted way he did me a favor because i it lit a fire under me and i think every time someone told me no for the longest time i internalized that into my identity you're a loser you're nothing you're never gonna amount to anything you're no good you're not enough that's the messaging of my whole life there was a turning point for me i think the accumulation of narcissistic abuse got too much i thought how dare you and i think things had to happen in my life i had my children like i think major in some ways having two daughters really pushed me to become like you know like wonder woman basically i'm like you know what i now have to defend myself not for me but for them and for them i'll always take the fight and so i think that emboldened me in a certain way but i'll tell you that so many people so many especially narcissistic people you can't do that or you're not going to be able to pull that off or that's ridiculous and so then it just became sit down put your head down get it done and and then i got lost in the project it's i stopped becoming about the revenge when i was deep in that dissertation i wasn't thinking like i'll show him i'll show him i'll show him i was like now i'm in it and the process carried me and then i was done you know that's what i was going to say actually where is that fine line and the difference between you're doing it just to get revenge versus you're actually using it as fuel to get the life you want it won't work for revenge because after a week you'll burn out oh okay yeah you have to want it you have to want it so the thing got you started it gave you the push to be like this is your deadline and then you're in and then you're in and then something you don't want to do it's not going to work lisa it's not going to work like i said it can't be linked to outcome it can't be i'm going to write a book and it's going to be a bestseller like forget the bestseller part get the words under the paper that's it that's that's a book the bestseller part does not make a book a book makes a book oh god i love that and then so going down just like to put a cap on the revenge thing so let's say um or how do you know then when you need to stop focusing on the things that they've said to you in the past and kind of like let go because it seems like holding on to that yeah to keep trying to prove it to themselves even if it's something that you want can just keep getting toxic and hold on to the wound that's right so i think that it is to the the idea of getting like the revenge being the success is that you were told for so long you can't you won't you don't have the ability you're too dumb the best way to break out of that mindset is to actually do something it's something called self-efficacy self-efficacy is this idea that we believe we can do something so most of us have self-efficacy for simple things like we know how to boil water we know how to brush our teeth right it's as we level up to things self-efficacy like can i run a mile can i um you know can i write a dissertation can i write a book can i make this deadline can i finish this degree um you know can i bake a pie i mean it's that sell can i prepare a dinner for four people all of those things if you have self-efficacy you believe you can do it you can do it you'll do it it may not someone else may not think it's a great dinner but you believe you've made dinner so you'll do it again self-efficacy is a call to action so that's why it's important we do things because sometimes we're like i don't know how to do that than we do like that wasn't so bad now i've got efficacy for that right so that's a big part of if the narcissistic person lays down the gauntlet and is mean to you and says you can't do it then you do it you're like i can do this you're efficacy building now i understand what you're saying is the holding on to it i think things like the efficacy building having experiences um succeeding in whatever ways you're succeeding even if it just means getting it done i do believe that that starts you start caring less about the narcissist and you're like oh i can do this thing and you get more focused on the doing i tell people all the time my goal for everybody in healing from narcissistic abuse is indifference i'm not looking for forgiveness i'm not looking for you to become friends i don't even think that's a good idea indifference you just don't care you don't care if they live you don't care if they die you don't think you care if they succeed you don't care if they fail you don't care if they're sick you don't care if they're well you don't care they're just and so when somebody comes up and says you're not going to believe it such and such is sick you're like you might be almost like you know you've come past this we're like oh okay um maybe you'll say like oh that's a shame they've got kids but you're saying it the same way you would if you read a newspaper article like what a shame this lady is sick and she has kids the same level of indifference like you're sad like that's a sad story but that lady in the paper is a stranger to you so you'd have the same level of reaction that indifference to me when i see it in people i'm like my job here is done you got it so about a month ago i went out for one of the first times i've been out in years and this young girl came up to me and she recognized me oh and she came up and she's like oh my god i just watched your video with dr romini and she said that it literally helped her so she was sitting on the bathroom floor she was in a narcissistic relationship she watched the video while she was in the bathroom because she couldn't watch certain things in front of him because he wouldn't you know allow her to and she literally was like i was in the bathroom watching the video on her phone and she was like it made me realize i needed to leave him so where can people find you find me on youtube at dr romini that's probably the place where like there's the most contained content you can go to my website which is also drromany.com and on there you'll find not only a link to youtube but other seminars and programs and like links to my books um other things i'm speaking on like for example would be a link to something like this that we do you find all that in that one place too the videos i do with you and podcasts i do with other people um that's where you find me i mean on instagram and you know we get stuff out there every day to just help people or share other people's content on narcissism that kind of thing too there's other people a lot of people out there doing good work in this space so you can find me on all those places guys guys i got extremely emotional when that girl came up to me and that was the first time i told you that story i wanted to tell you in person that's how much this woman is impacting people please spread the word please go to her youtube channel check it out like she said it's the most beautiful compass people need to hear it people need to reach out to the people that are struggling share the content share her stuff start helping and if you're not subscribed click that subscribe button and if you're not following me follow me at leaseability and until next time guys be the hero of your own life peace out

Channel: Women of Impact

Views: 520,125

Keywords: inspiration, Dr. Ramani, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, Lisa Bilyeu, Women of Impact, women, women empowerment, interview, q&a, business advice, advice for women, tips for women, podcasts, be your own hero, relationship abuse, abusive relationships, emotional abuse, narcissism, narcissistic relationships, narcissistic abuse, signs of narcissism, healing from narcissistic relationship, healing from narcissism, narcissist traps, trauma bonding, trauma bonding narcissist, getting revenge

Id: IOnZYVTNVNc

Length: 68min 32sec (4112 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 05 2022