Overcome Narcissist Aftermath: Your Grief is Shared Fantasy, too!

okay bunnies in barnetts today we're going to discuss a very sad topic which is why I'm going to fortify myself with a sip of black wine and the only reason is because I'm a supernova Galactic empath as you all know by now today's topic your grief after narcissistic abuse your Mourning after a relationship with a narcissist you're grieving of what has been and what could have been of him and you and both of you what I'm proposing today is going to be difficult to hear I'm suggesting that your grief is another stage in the shared fantasy foreign and I'm the author of malignant self-love narcissism Revisited I am a former visiting professor of psychology in Southern federal University who was stolened on a Russian Federation and I'm a member of The Faculty of siops a commonwealth for international Advanced professional studies in Toronto Canada Cambridge United Kingdom and what else Lagos Nigeria let us delve writing grieving in the wake of a narcissistically abused abusive shirt fantasy is a fantasy you're very grief is incorporated into the shirt fantasy and constitutes an integral part of it you mourn the shirt fantasy via another fantasy of grief your grief therefore is not entirely real it is divorced from reality and this is also the key to overcoming it and healing as I will discuss in the second part of the video first we need to understand what is fantasy how does it relate to grief or your grief more particularly and why a relationship with a narcissist within a shared fantasy is very different to a relationship with anyone else and therefore the breakup with the narcissist is not the same as a breakup with any other partner let's start with the fact that as an intimate partner you internalize The Narcissist snapshot of you now remember when the narcissist comes across you and considers you a potential source of narcissistic Supply a playmate a mother figure a maternal substitute when the narcissist makes up his mind that you could fit in as his so-called intimate partner in the new shared fantasy the first thing he does he takes a snapshot of you now this snapshot this snapshotting process clinically is called identification internalization interjection has three phases I will not go into it because I've dedicated like 943 videos to it so just search search a channel the first thing he does the narcissist he takes a snapshot and again when I say he it also means she there's an equal number of women who analysis and so please don't start to spew your endless comments about how I only use he and I actually should use they Etc so I'm going to use he because that's the good common literary form has been in the last few hundred years okay when the narcissist comes across you the internal he internalizes your snapshot it creates a snapshot of you and it becomes an internal object but the same thing happens to you you internalize The Narcissist snapshot of you now the snapshot starts off as a mental representation of you of reality of an external object it's exactly like a true snapshot but then the narcissist photoshops the snapshot he idealizes you he creates a fantastic constant internal object that replaces you he no longer interacts with you in reality he interacts with your internal object in his mind but he does something a lot more pernicious he forces you to do the same he coerces you into internalizing his the way he sees you you interject The Narcissist gaze in your own mind you become the snapshot and it's very intoxicating because a snapshot is everything you're not it's ideal it's perfect it's drop dead gorgeous it's hyper super intelligent and so on so forth so you would want to be you want to be this natural you want to you want to conform to this snapshot you you want to become this idealized image of you you fall in love with yours with your idealized self you fall in love with the way the narcissist sees you you fall in love with yourself through the narcissist is gay so you have every incentive in the world to internalize these gaze and appropriate it make it yours at some point the only thing that's left in the shared fantasy is a snapshot of you you have become the snapshot also as an external object both of you share an agreement on who you are and who you are is this idealized two-dimensional cardboard cutout this is why it's called a shared fantasy because you share the fantasy a shared fantasy is not so much about roles because you don't have any discernible rules in a shared fantasy a shared fantasy is much more about who you are about your essence you are a maternal figure you are a source of narcissistic Supply you are a body to masturbate with who you are and it's a passive thing roles imply an active participation but in the shared fantasy you're supposed to be passive you're reduced to two-dimensionality to become a photograph and you do it also in order to please the narcissist you're trying to conform to the narcissist's expectations of you you're trying to become this idealized snapshot thereby pleasing him placating him and preventing abuse intermittent reinforcement and Trauma bonding is all about this process you also by becoming the snapshot you also have an answer to the question what does he want from me what he wants from you is to become the snapshot if you diverge from the snapshot you should deviate from the snapshot you're going to be punished and if punishment won't do it it's going to devalue and discard you because you're no longer the snapshot now this is an Insight not my insight it is lacan's Insight his concept of neurotic fantasy so the fantasy in this case you adopt the fantasy you share the fantasy in order to please the narcissist in order to love to self-love to fall in love with your idealized self and in order to answer the question what does he want from me the minute you find the minute you know the answer to this question you feel safe if you know what the narcissist wants from you you can gratify him you can meet his expectations and he's not gonna torture you and abuse you and punish you but what is a fantasy I keep saying fantasy funded shared fantasy this neurotic fantasy what is a fantasy fantasy is imagination replacing a portion of reality or all of it with imagination now there are numerous types of fantasy there is a conscious Fantasy Versus an unconscious one a discursive or narrative Fantasy Versus an existential fantasy State of Mind for example saying I'm Napoleon that's delusional but it's also fantastic so it has an element of existential fantasy um or I'm a good person that's a fantasy there is a simple Fantasy Versus a complex fantasy in a funeral fantasy process and forgotten versus a fixed fantasy lifelong a common Fantasy Versus an uncommon fantasy a culturally sanctioned Fantasy Versus a culturally dystonic fantasy a fantasy that Society frowns upon now in today's world for example narcissistic shared fantasies have become the norm when I was born which is when the Lost dinosaurs roamed the Earth just before the comet when I was born narcissistic fantasies were culturally frowned upon these people were sanctioned driven away shamed today narcissistic shirt fantasies are the aspiration they are the Bonton they are in fashion they're a fad they're culturally they're culturally um syntonic culture encourages you to be narcissistic and to engage in a shared fantasy so culturally sanctioned fantasies versus culturally dystonic and the narcissistician fantasy transition from culturally dystonic to culturally sanctions then there is the discharge Fantasy Versus the defense fantasy we'll discuss it in a few minutes and there is inherited Primal Fantasy Versus experiential fantasy I think the Lost distinction is nonsensical but there are many psychologists who adhere to it the idea is that we inherit fantasies genetically somehow we inherit fantasies from the earlier Generations it's kind of Primal fantasies we are born with it okay I think it's unmitigated nonsense but okay there are a few quite a few psychologists who adhere to this it fulfills the need for Fantasy I guess okay another distinction which I think is very important is whether the fantasy is self-contained solipsistic has nothing to do with reality does not build upon any figments or elements of the world or the universe as we know them therefore has no objectivity whatsoever that's one type of fantasy the self-contained or solipsistic Fantasy Versus what I call the incorporating fantasy it's a fantasy that includes reality somehow But it includes reality in a way that falsifies reality so in this sense defense mechanisms are many fantasies so the incorporating fantasy either represses reality denies it but by recognizing it it recognizes it and then it denies it of course you can't deny or repress something that does not exist you first need to accept the existence of something and only then you can represent denied so a repression repression or denial fantasy is actually a real a fantasy that incorporates reality and the other option is to reframe reality to collect fiction to emotionally invest in fiction in symbols or in what lakhan called the signifying structure okay this is a general introduction to to fantasy fantasies imagination flights of fantasy that's all that's all there is to it fantasies involve compensatory wish fulfillment you have a wish you don't believe you can fulfill it you don't believe it will ever be realized actualized or materialized and so you fantasize about fulfilling this wish and the fantasy is compensatory and future oriented of course you fulfill wishes in the future the alternative is a reconstructive fantasy fantasy that reconstructs the past somehow many scholars say that all memory is a form of reconstructive fantasy we fantasize about what has happened in the past we don't really remember anything at least not rigorously and objectively as we like to believe no fantasies cater to a multiplicity of wishes erotic sexual wishes aggressive wishes self-aggrandizing wishes ego syntonic wishes soothing wishes and most importantly defensive wishes a wish to avoid pain hurt and Trauma this was lacan's contribution to the science of fantasy so fantasy is a defense mechanism and it's a defense mechanism intended to fend off and firewall and protect against hurt and pain and that's why abused children develop fantasy defenses and when these fantasy defenses go awry they become pathological narcissism fantasy can also involve a get Duncan experiment a thought experiment they can be experimental testing out scenarios not in reality where there would be consequences but in your mind in the safety of your imagination so testing hypothetical experimental fantasies now this is fantasy what about a shared fund in a shared fantasy many of the functions of the fantasy are outsourced so when you is an intimate partner participate in the shared fantasy what you're doing actually you're Outsourcing many of these functions of the fantasy to your partner you become passive and this passivity this relegation of responsibility decision making and angst to use sata's word so these the fact that you are relieved of the burden of existence it's an existential decision this endow you with the sense State safety stability predictability determinacy uncertainty so by Outsourcing yourself to your intimate partner by allowing the fantasy to take over functions that normally should be internal and autonomous by doing this you acquire peace of mind and in this sense the intimate partner in the shared fantasy is always a borderline even when she is not a borderline because what is borderline personality disorder it's emotional dysregulation it's very important but even as importantly it's the Outsourcing of internal regulation to the outside the borderline patient asks her intimate partner demands from her intimate partner to regulate her emotions and her moods to be the rock around which she can construct her universe and in a shared fantasy every partner every intimate partner of the narcissist whether she has borderline or not becomes a borderline in this restricted sense she demands from the narcissist to regulate her internal environment her mind to take over her mind and many partners of narcissists describe it exactly this way as a takeover of their minds it's kind of brainwashing and of course I call it in training borrowing from recent studies in neuroscience okay so this is a shared fantasy shirt fantasy is a fantasy involving two people where one of the people involved transfers her mental functions to an outside to the other partner that's a shared fantasy and in the shirt fantasy the intimate partner of the narcissist becomes passive and adopts his view of herself sees herself exclusively through his gaze thereby idealizing herself and objectifying herself now this is very similar to a concept first described by Lucy LaFarge l-a-f-a-r-g-e-a like the LaFarge in Britain in 2004 and 2006 she she coined the phrase fantasies of the imaginer and fantasies of the imagined and this pertain to object relations between a parent and a child now remember that in my work the shared fantasy relies on a mechanism called dual Mothership you as an intimate partner you are the narcissist mother and he is your mother you're each other's mothers so lafarge's work is very relevant very applicable to the Dual Mothership of mechanism within the shared factors what she says is that the object relations between the parent and the child involves engaging together in Imagining the child's experience the parents capacity for an attitude in Imagining the child Imagining the child snapshotting has an impact upon the child's subjective experience of the parent so the way the parent imagines the child affects the way the child perceives the parent and his entire subjective work the two sets of fantasies they imagined in the imaginary imagineer the two sets of fantasies the child fantasizes the parent the parent photos of the child the two sets of those dialectically linked these fantasies of the imaginer in the imagined are ubiquitous that often it remains silent during the clinical work they draw upon historical experience but are also altered by wishes and defenses against those wishes with their emergency treatment for example the patient may remain in the imagined child role and cast the annalies in the imagining parent Rule and this is exactly what you do in the shared fantasy you cast The Narcissist in the role of the imagining parent you want the narcissist to imagine you and of course the narcissist wants you to do the same with him you're both imaginary and imagined in the in these fantasies um so in a later paper LaFarge in 2009 she applied these ideas to lying and deception very interesting in itself I'll deal with it maybe one day another scholar that is of interest is Michelle Peron Borelli 1997. Michelle she she said that every fantasy is centered on a representation of action whether active like seducing or passive being seduced and she defined fantasy in terms of a three-part structure comprised of an agent in action and an object of the action and this structure is analogous to the basic grammatical subject verb object pattern so it's not an accident perhaps that language reflects the development of thought and that it indicates that the origins of thinking of cognition are in fantasy it seems that the first the First Act of mentation by the baby is fantasy exactly as Klein had suggested all fantasy active I'm I'm quoting all fantasy activity therefore and indeed all thought may be conceived of as a system of transformations of this basic structure by a variety of means changing of places by the subject and in the object relative to the action for example changing from activity to passivity or vice versa the replacement of the object or the subject the Assumption of by the subject of the Viewpoint of an outside Observer which is what I've been saying you adopt The Narcissist snapshotting of you and so on in this view the subject comes into being and develops by virtue of these Transformations themselves The Narcissist gives you the experience of becoming it is like the narcissist is giving birth to you he is your womb and he's giving birth to you within the shared fantasy and of course because he is the birth giver he is your mother almost in the biological sense he also defines you or redefines you his way or perceiving you the snapshot his gaze come to be you to Define you so when you mourn the shirt fantasy your morning the loss of the narcissist you're mourning the loss of the shared fantasy you are mourning the loss of yourself in the shared fantasy you're mourning what could have been had the shared fantasy continued you're mourning many things and have dwelt upon all these in multiple interviews and videos over the last six years morning process of the narcissistic abuse is multifarious and is prolonged it's a prolonged grief disorder but it's important to understand that you're mourning something that had never existed when we apply emotions or cognitions to something that had never existed even if we believe that it had existed counterfactually that is fantasy in other words your grief is fantasy and could be easily construed and perceived as the last stage of the shared fantasy even when the narcissist abundance you discards you moves on never hovers you finds a substitute mother even then he is still with you in your head embedded and trained and you still see yourself exclusively Through Your Eyes your mourning and grieving your Mo your mourning and grieving they are within the shared fantasy they are strongly indicative that you have never exited the shared fantasy you've never separated and individuated when the baby when the infant toddler separates from Mommy there is a process of grieving in mourning and Trauma in Terror and that's exactly what's happening to you it's exactly what's happening to you and there are six stages of grief their denial anger bargaining depression acceptance and Hope I'm going to touch upon each and every one of them briefly they were first described in 1969 by Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross she proposed five stages She interviewed patients who were dying of cancer and then over the years the theory has been expanded and so on so forth and in 1992 Dr Kenneth Docker the okay added hope to the five stages of grief and history he recognizes many people find it helpful to have something to look forward to after a breakup or death in the family or any type of loss that provokes morning and and grieving so he he had he had added hope each stage involves a set of emotions and people often move back and forth between the stages but uh it's important to remember that ultimately you have to cycle through all the stages in order to reach hope in order to reach healing reconciliation with yourself and reclaiming and regaining you your true you because immediately after the shared fantasy having been discarded or broken up with the narcissist or even walked Walked Away of your own accord in volition immediately in the aftermath you are a snapshot there's no you you exist only within the shared fantasy shirt fantasy defines you you need to move move on by finding rediscovering Reinventing if need be yourself and this can be done only through the stages of grief um now breakups especially breakups of shared fantasy provoke a grieving process which is not very different to graving over death or an extreme loss also Freedom mode loss of loss of your entire wealth loss of a workplace that meant a lot to you and so on loss and so you need to self-affirm you need to validate your grief you need you don't deny your grief but accept that you have lost not only something external but you have lost a big part of yourself grief is the recognition that you had been amputated it's the phantom pain of a missing organ or a missing you know the part of you that's been snatched and sliced off and carved off to use sanguine metaphors it's a recognition of that part it's it's mourning that part you're a dented identity would never be the same in the wake of a shared fantasy you need a lot of self-compassion and you need other people's compassion so networking and socializing and connecting with others and nurturing your sense of self via other people's input and gaze not in an addictive way not via fantasy these are all very important we'll discuss uh we'll discuss these in detail a bit later so the loss of the narcissist and the loss of yourself are inextricably linked they are one and the same Mr narcissists had come to be your substitute self now that's a very very important distinction in a typical breakup you're able to tell apart yourself from your lost partner you know where you end and the partner began when you ended an apartment began so when the father walks away when you dump the partner or when you lose the partner you know where you end when you you still retain yourself so the Dual the Dual morning or the Dual grief in a typical breakup is for the Lost pattern and for yourself and these are two concurrent parallel processes not so in a shared fantasy in a shared fantasy there's been a measurement merger Fusion you've become one with your Tormentor with your abuser with the narcissist so when he's gone you're gone but you're not gone partly your gun holy you have been vacated so it's much more terrifying than just a typical breakup it's your mourn him and you mourn you in him and he's still in you you can't tell you can't cut yourself off you can't tell There's No Boundaries you can't tell both of you apart there is sadness anger negative effects but because you're one with the narcissist they're often self-directed so in a healthy or normal relationship when the partner walks away when you dump the partner you can be angry at the partner but you're never being you'll not be angry at yourself or not to that extent but in the shared fantasy any emotion however negative however extreme you want to destroy the partner you want to kill the partner you want to incarcerate get the partner in prison do you want to whatever you want to do to the partner you actually want to do to yourself because you are you are your partner you are the narcissist you have become one with the narcissist and so anything you want to do to the nurses you you end up doing to yourself all these all these negative effectivity is poisoning you it's toxic it's the only reason you should walk away and forget and forgive if not forget because you are one within our system it's a very dangerous game to play now separating yourself from another person is never easy because it involves very powerful emotions such as love and very powerful cognitions such as hope it's never easy but how do you separate yourself from yourself because that's who the narcissist is yourself the narcissist is shape-shifting is protein there's nobody there he's he's your reflection the narcissist is who you could have been you're idealized you the narcissist shapes him kind of velocity slithers over you and fits you like a glove he kind of slides all over you and engulfs you and encompasses you and then he fits you so snugly he becomes like a second skin breaking up with a narcissist is the same as skinning yourself alive it's that onerous it's that tumultuous it's that torturous it's a horrible process to go through and so we need to understand that in a shared fantasy there's no Harmony there's no community this is a hostile takeover there is body and mind snatching it's a horror movie there was no Comfort there was no happiness what is it that you are mourning if not him what did he give you in a shared fantasy if not your own thoughts Amplified your own wishes fantasized in your own image idealized there was nobody there is the harrowing truth that is why your grief can never end because you are grieving a non-entity that has never been there coupled with you you who have been snatched and had been rendered in absence The Narcissist emptiness and absence are contagious you had become a null proposition you'd become a null sentence you'll become a nothing a black hole exactly like a narcissist and any need in craving you have for the narcissist is a needed craving for becoming for being again not being something being I mean you just want to be again because when you are in the shared fantasy you are lot that's a non-existential state so this loss of self which comes from enmeshment suspension of being doesn't Foster strong Inner Harmony you're in the position of no longer recognizing yourself and no longer comprehending what what it is that has happened to you it's a whiplash it's you are you're totally disoriented and this loss of identity is the ultimate form of grief we grieve over losses we mourn absences and what is bigger than losing yourself and what is harsher than being absent in your own life and it starts with denial that's the first stage of grief it's an important part it allows you to accept that he's gone you need to accept his departure it's not about forgetting it's not about pretending that he may be back you need to understand that he would never be back even if he were to try to Hoover you you need to have boundaries and say no so he's gone he's gone and this Lacuna this void that he has left behind is a black hole and if you get too close it will suck you in and you will never ever escape never you can't escape a black hole except as some form of radiation so this disbelief the shock this numbness this derealization you feel that your life has become a kind of nightmare or dream a fantasy you know in the stage of denial that's the stage where you realize that you are living in a fantasy that you've always been in a fantasy with this man or woman with a narcissist it's always been a fantasy but the denial is so powerful the shock is so externally enormous that all the defenses are down you decompensate and then when the defenses are down you're face to face with reality and the reality is there has been no reality it's always been Au fantasy and so you feel like you're in a dream trapped in a dream a bedroom a nightmare and that is when you get your first chance to process to process what's happening because you keep telling yourself this isn't happening to me I know this isn't happening to me and it is a fantasy response of course because you're still embedded in the shared fantasy you reject the idea that it's over your belief you create an alternative fantasy of him coming back to you or you going back to them or this kind of thing this is proof positive that the shared fantasy does not end when he when he exits your life does not end when he discards you and it's not over when you dump him because the first stage of grief denial exposes to you unequivocally and unambiguously that you're still in a fantasy and then when you have realized this foreign that you had been imprisoned that you had been Shackled and incarcerated in brainwashed and entrained and that you had been subjected to an invasion of your mind and very frequently your body then you transition to anger and fairly angry is normal and healthy be angry with everything possible be angry with yourself be angry with him be angry with God if you are delusionally inclined you're feeling abandoned you're Justified your anger is Justified you're right to be angry now in the shirt fantasy there's a complication you remember the Dual Mothership the narcissist is your mother it is not okay to be angry at mother it's not the dumb thing you're a bad girl if you're angry at mother you need to overcome this in your primitive reptilian stem brain the narcissist is your mother because he gave you unconditional love and he has idealized you and during the love bombing phase he acted as a motherhood but he is not your mother he's never been your mother it's all been fake so you need to overcome this and you need to validate your anger and direct it at the right target and their anger is also often hampered by the need for closure like there is there are unsaid things between us there's still an unsettled account and there isn't within the shirt fantasy you had all the information that you would ever need The Narcissist ironically is very honest he may lie about about facts or about behaviors but emotionally at least he's very honest he's openly abusive he is clearly in training he is brainwashing his everything he does is very open in the open he often discusses these things with you he agrees with you in advance about everything from sexual fantasies to to who's in charge so you need to accept you need to accept this that there are no unsaid things between you there's no agenda left there's nothing more to talk about let alone do together so feel angry towards him feel angry towards yourself accept and validate it and allow this anger to cut him off allow this anger to dissipate the shared fantasy because shared fantasy cannot survive or subsist in an angry environment it requires it shared fantasy requires the pretension the pretension of love and compassion and affection and acceptance and empathy in support and support and so on it's a piece of fiction it's a theater production but it cannot tolerate anger coming from the intimate part it can tolerate anger coming from The Narcissist but never from the intimate partner so need for Revenge feelings of Rage resentment for having disrupted you you are now a person interrupted you know resentment for this not allowing you to attain Inner Harmony and to cultivate yourself resenting yourself being angry at yourself even self-blaming you need to let all these happen I'm not saying you need to act on some of these things with anger often leads you astray into dangerous and risky situations don't do not succumb to your anger don't translate your anger into action but live with it embrace it accept it immerse yourself in it allow yourself to fully experience it and direct it at him as well and tell yourself I never want to go through this again so this is the end I don't need closure I don't want to talk to him I don't ever see him again and that leads to the next stage next stage is badly you start to feel that there's something you could have done differently you wish you you wish you had done things differently you wish you had tried harder spend more time be more understanding there's a sense of guilt for things you didn't do the things you did too it's a sense of Shame and blame for things you didn't say and things you did say and this becomes overwhelming very quickly so you need to start to bargain with yourself or again if you're delusionally inclined with a higher power you need to bargain with yourself you need to say I will do anything if only this doesn't happen or I will do this and this if God gives me another chance or life gives me another chance the bargaining stage is about making deals not with anyone out there not with the processes heaven for friend never it's striking a deal with yourself creating a new bargain with yourself allowing you to find a way out of the pain you're feeling there is comfort in knowing that you have learned your lesson and that you've Incorporated your lesson into your thinking and that therefore the chances are this will never happen again ruminating on thoughts like I could have done this or I should have done that uh this is a waste of time all the codes could apps would have shoulders it's a waste of time unless you derive lessons and then you implement them within a grand bargain Grand bargain with yourself to salvage future relationships and your identity and to regain yourself and so bargaining is just an insurance policy a self-reassurance as to the future but of course it has very little application to the present okay it won't happen in the future I won't do this in the future I've learned my lesson great what about now I'm angry a morning I'm grieving and I'm helpless I'm impotent there's nothing you can do to the narcissist really in the vast majority of cases there's nothing you can do you pass through your life like a hurricane like a twister ruining everything in his path and then exited as disinterested and as indifferent and as in human as he has been when he entered and he left you with a legacy of a shared fantasy inability to interface and interact with reality properly and impaired reality testing and of you of yourself that is highly skewed and and unrealistic these are the gifts of the narcissist and all the closure all the bargaining in the world and all the anger in the universe will not help you and so when you realize that when you finally understand comprehend the extent of the ruinous damage you develop depression depression is an integral phase of grieving and you should let it happen do not fight it do not medicate it do not medicate it depression is super important in healing from grief and overcoming Mourning it's characterized by intense feelings of sadness and emptiness you might feel loneliness existential loneliness and again it can provoke anger why do I still want him you know why can't I live without him why when he's gone I want you back what's wrong with me I've just struck a bargain with myself and minutes later I'm again violating it I'm again breaching the Covenant with myself that I've that I've made and so forgive yourself for Being Human [Music] depression is the Crux and the gist of mourning it's the understanding the unmolested and uncontested understanding that you are alone all of us are alone that you are the only one responsible for your emotions you can't be responsible for anyone else's emotions and therefore you should own your sadness in your emptiness and even sometimes your suicidal ideation you should own them should embrace them as yours you should integrate them you should leverage them to accomplish good outcomes so there's disbelief there's numbness the shock at who your your in your narcissist your intimate partner your narcissistic intimate partner at who he really was or is and that who and that who you had become in order to accommodate him succeedingly depressing because in placing yourself in this situation consenting to become a part of a shared fantasy is the mother of all self-betrayals you have betrayed yourself it's as if you have cheated on yourself and of course you're depressed of course you're depressed because you've discovered that you are not a good friend to yourself and possibly you're your worst enemy that is a terrifying thought a paralyzing thought depression is a form of self-directed aggression in some school schools of psychological thinking so these intense and overwhelming feelings of sadness isolation hopelessness the you begin to develop automatic negative thoughts you know what new ones like I am undeserving of happiness I can never get anything right no new relationship will work and you need CBT cognitive behavior therapy you experience these emotions and they're not bad for you they're cathartic they purify you they Purge you it's detox you're jump starting your own sense of self and putting down the foundations of healing detox ask any junkie is horrible cold turkey you know but it's normal come to terms with who you are your grief your sadness and move on to the next stage which is acceptance and that's the final stage of grief one before Hope it's a newfound understanding that his gun and the ability to discuss the relationship in the narcissist who used to be who you who you used to believe was your intimate partner so to discuss all this openly finally feeling that you're able to start to move on with your life maybe date again maybe regain Trust in other people you start to accept the reality and you realize that you can't change whatever what has happened your magical thinking is disabled because throughout the previous stages of grief there's magical thinking I could have done it differently I can change the past I can affect the future I can make him come back to me this is magical thinking that's a child's defense against the world a world that is unforgiving unrelenting impartial and indifferent to you magical thinking is the illusion that just by thinking you can change external reality and that's the magical part but it's nonsense and the acceptance phase is giving up on the Enchantment of the past on magical thinking he will still feel sad you will still miss the narcissist the good moments with the narcissist you will miss the shed fantasy itself it's very intense it's very colorful it's all consuming it's wonderful it's like being in a movie or in every Everlasting vacation you will miss the shirt fantasy and you will miss yourself in the shared fantasy your idealized image the fact that you could relegate all decision-making responsibilities for someone else the fake feeling of stability and safety and Inner Harmony the loss of all these will never go away yes never go away but you can and should accept that this is the case show yourself self-compassion feel more courage be more courageous both for yourself and for other people find clarity about yourself Who You Are what do relationships mean for you how do you perceive other people what is your concept of intimacy what is Partnerships in your partnership in your eyes what is your relationship not with others with yourself first and foremost do you love yourself the chance to recognize that you can if you wish repair yourself because yes you have been damaged and maybe even broken by the shared fantasy no matter how brief it has been and that hopefully transitions you to Hope hope is when you start to see the future in a new light you begin to plan for the future and think about ways to extricate yourself from the last vestiges of the shared memory you silence the interjects you silence The Voice of the narcissist in your mind you pay attention to your authenticity and authentic voice life is worth living and there are things to to look forward to you're not in denial you still said you still miss him there's still a sense of loss but you are capable of happiness and pleasure finding pleasure again talk all the time talk about your grief and what has happened seek professional help if you need to but ask for assistance even from strangers share share share accepting the demise of a shared fantasy is possibly the most difficult imaginable Human Experience I would rate it as the most traumatic experience ever yes modern divorce yes more than the death of a child yes more than the death of a loved one because the death of a shared fantasy is all three of these things it's the death of your love child the death of a beloved child your narcissist the death of a lover or a loved one your narcissist the death of the fantasy itself the death of the entire world the whole universe is vacated and Abandoned and empty swirling around nothingness do not compare yourself with others and never be ashamed to talk to people your feelings are valid they're not wrong just because someone else handles loss and Grave differently there are 8.2 billion people on the planet and 82.2 billion ways of handling grief and Mourning take in this case it's your way my way or the highway take your way accepting accepting the end the ending of a shirt fantasy is challenging even for professionals you know it's super super difficult the grief gets worse because even even when the abuser is gone his voice is here his introduced his tormenting your day and light and it's very convincing because it knows you like no one else it knows you intimately because it is you The Narcissist introject had become you in the shirt fantasy so it's you tormenting you and you know yourself so well you know which buttons to push and you never cease pushing them hope is never lost I'm a I'm a great opponent of hope I think hope is opium for the masses but in this case I advocate it it's a it's self-deception it's a lie so what so what the short fantasy is a lie sometimes you need a lie to counter a lie to counter a greater lie sometimes you need a little evil to counter a greater evil so hope is not lost you will be happy again if you give yourself the chance if you love yourself sufficiently watch my video on the four pillars of surflow there is life after death even the death of a shared fantasy and this life could be as rewarding and as beautiful as before or even more so because now you're wiser an older and more mature give yourself the time to heal you cannot bounce of grief overnight do not impute to yourself grandiosly the powers of a superhero no one is a superhero except me of course grieving takes time grieving takes patience grieving takes self-care grieving takes honesty grieving takes courage honesty with yourself no spin first and for foremost no lies no deceptions courage truth demands courage feel your emotions allow yourself to experience them for as long as needed and as intensely as needed don't be afraid as long as you truly experience your emotions the risk of suicide is minimal it is when you repress and suppress and reframe and deny your emotions that suicide becomes a possibility healing is not a straight line it's a jagged line and this Jagged line cuts into the flesh self-compassion time kindness patience self-affirmation if it works for you listen to uplifting music watch funny videos I don't know pamper yourself love yourself as a motherhood mourn yourself as a motherhood your feelings are important they do matter first and foremost to you but share them with others connect you have a need for Community it's part of Who You Are you we always need and gravitate towards other people we connect with other people misery loves company don't we say this funerals are mass events dozens of people if you're lucky attend your funeral the support systems we have should foster the sense of belonging and assure us that it's okay to need other people you need to nurture yourself nurture yourself process the grief affirm your experience believe in your own power Empower yourself you're an agent believe in your agency you can ground yourself and you do not need to ground yourself in grief free territory you need to ground yourself in your grief you need to confront your grief head on eye to eye dual at noon okay Coral you need to fight your grief as if it were a gunslinger so you need to ground yourself in your grief lighter candle go to Nature read a book I don't know even in your grief even in your morning you need to exit it never develop a relationship with your grief and money as many people do never affect them never emotionally invest in them never get committed to your grief and Mourning Never promote it never render it the most important thing in your life the thing that organizes Your Existence and makes sense of it never transform your grief and mourning to an organizing principle or an explanatory one life has meaning outside your grief grief is about the loss of meaning the opposite of grief is excitement the opposite of grief is happiness the opposite of grief is contentment the opposite of grief is life These are grounds for a new beginning and so Grieve Your Own Way experience your own grief be your own friend become your own Community self nurture strengthen your relationship with yourself find your self-identity outside the shared fantasy but also do all these things with other people seek other people it's a very real process grief surreal and valid and harsh and difficult and breaking process it's not an emotionally positive state it's a very negative state and you could easily become lost in these Myriad internal processes it's intense it's overwhelming and but that's okay understand the stages of grief that are described and the uniqueness of the shared funders experience your body as well some people vouch for Body Therapies or mind-body therapies try try it exercise I don't know try to see whether your body can help you it could be your greatest Ally in some cases take your time above all don't expect immediate gratification and results feel your emotions slowly as in a European movie validate each stage process everything again process the processing process the process processing do it over and over again regurgitate true on the food this food This Bitter food of grief and moaning there is no timeline for healing take as long as needed and be extra kind to yourself during this time and allow yourself to connect with friends and family seek support and do everything you can to attain Wellness above all expel The Narcissist voice from your head watch my videos on separation and individuation in the wake of narcissistic abuse and implement the steps there to the letter I wish you success foreign

Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin

Views: 65,088

Keywords: narcissist, grief, mourning, grieving, partner, spouse, mate, introject, fantasy, potential, loss, sadness, betrayal, closure, hope, syndrome, dsm, anger, dreams, plans, catastrophizing, identity, goals, denial, depression, acceptance, shared fantasy, death, introjection, voices, reality

Id: mQCFy3PuZcw

Length: 64min 53sec (3893 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023