The 5 BEST WAYS To Release Yourself From A Narcissist's GRIP! | Dr Ramani

remember that a lot of narcissistic relationship happens in your head you try to you try to convince yourself that things were better than they actually were and you can start believing that pseudo-reality and grieve the story that you made up in your head today I'm going to be offering you some tips 10 ways actually 10 ways to become more resistant to narcissists my goal in doing this work obviously is to help people recover but a bigger goal would be to help whenever possible keep people from getting these into these relationships in the first place and if they're in them at least help them from getting sucked in too much deeper now I'm offering 10 ways as you listen to this video If there are tips you have for becoming more resistant to narcissists that work for you could you because again please subscribe to this channel because it is honestly this community often gives a tremendous amount of useful feedback in the comments becomes its own sort of piece of guidance on these videos but let's take this on 10 what are 10 ways that you can become more resistant to narcissists in all areas of your life for me working with people all these years on managing the narcissists in their lives one thing I've learned is one simple truth in an Ideal World you don't let them in in the first place but I know that guidance is a day late and a dollar short for lots of you who are already deeply in these messes and this that guidance is useless if this is a narcissistic parent or sibling in which you had no choice in the situation however if you could learn some of these strategies for how to become more resistant you may be able to shut the gate on future narcissists and perhaps also learn to keep yourself a little bit more sane with the ones who are already in your life number one please learn to own your truth and own your reality if you can do this then you simply put have Gaslight repellent the recent gaslighting works is because we give the other person too much credit and we don't give ourselves enough this may happen because we perceive the other person to be smart or for some reason you believe they're credible and because you don't value your own opinion enough the first time the first time your reality is questioned by someone step back pay attention and seriously considering consider cutting bait number two stop falling for Charisma and charm somewhere along the line we were told that charismatic and Charming people are somehow valuable or interesting and maybe that's because the charismatic and Charming people get to make the rules as far as I'm concerned Charisma is like heavy perfume or cologne that someone wears when they don't take a shower it's probably covering something else tread very carefully when someone is larger than life or intoxicating or seductive or oh so silver tongued I know this is the opposite of everything you have ever been taught but and most people tell me though sadly they fell for the charm and the Charisma we've been programmed to do this but don't fall for it if you encounter a charming and charismatic person you really need to make an effort to pay attention to what they are saying remember number three remember that just being smart or educated is not a virtue listen I am educated I worked hard for it I also think I'm a nice person but my education is not what made me a nice person I know plenty of really educated and really smart people out there who are very toxic and cruel and unkind do not fall into the Trap of thinking that someone who is smart or intellectually gifted or educated that somehow those things are virtues being smart is just a trick it means you know stuff if you're smart think good for you but all of us need to remember that far more important is kindness and compassion that those are virtues being smart is not a virtue keep that straight so you keep your guard up and get to know someone before giving them the benefit of the doubt just because they're smart many of us don't always feel comfortable with our intellects so it's very easy to get snowed by a smart person number four speaking of that don't get snowed by Rich and successful people now this is a riff on that smart one there is a belief that people who are rich and who are successful are somehow doing something right and maybe they are or maybe they're just lucky or maybe they inherited it or maybe they did something Shady to get it the risk becomes that the assumption is that they are somehow better better than you better than me which can set up a power imbalance into which it is easier for them to Gaslight you the same mistake can be made around fame or celebrity Halos can be drawn around people who are toxic just because they are famous or fancy don't fall for it whether a person is a prince or a popper pay attention to their words and their actions and don't imbue them with virtue just because they're successful number five watch how they treat other people this can be tricky because narcissists are so two-faced they are masterful at putting on a great public face and treating those close to them very badly behind closed doors but if you pay attention to how they treat who they would consider to be I don't know lower status people or people who make mistakes where they're concerned for example the unfortunate server who may make an error in their order or somebody who calls them out watch how they treat those people and watch how they talk about other people odds are that before too long they're going to be talking about you in the same way number six learn the narcissists tells if you're a poker player you know big way you win other than getting good cards is learning the other players tells tells are their little Twitches non-verbal movements the way they react to their cards can give you a lot of information narcissists are no different their ultimate tell is to watch how they behave under conditions of frustration or disappointment that's where you usually see it they're usually Charming facade will fade to anger rage and contempt when things don't go their way don't write excuses for them number seven become okay with setting boundaries no is a complete sentence it's okay to say no to not succumb to what feels like intrusive Behavior just because someone wants what they want entitled people are more than willing to take their half out of the middle boundaries are your way of saying no too many people who are vulnerable to narcissists are generally people Pleasers and one thing that people Pleasers are not good at is at setting boundaries set those boundaries hold those boundaries is the narcissist going to get mad you better believe it learn to tolerate their discomfort instead of succumbing by constantly being the one who compromises for them number eight dump the enablers the narcissists are only part of your problem the enablers are the rest of the issue you may be able to start nudging the narcissist out but the enablers are yet another Vector of toxicity they the Nar the I'm sorry the enablers are often the ones who continue to Gaslight you and second guess you if you are distancing and disengaging from The Narcissist you need to do the same thing with the enablers and this isn't easy because the enablers are quite often they're actually not toxic themselves but they live in a big cloud a cloud of denial and not wanting to face down the toxic truth and sadly it's in this way that intergenerational patterns get passed down and persist Number Nine stop giving Second Chances Second Chances Are what give narcissists their power in essence it is you signing off on their behavior and the orchestra of voices that's around you that want you to give them Second Chances include their enablers now yes I know it can seem abrupt to cut a person off after just one mistake but after they make one mistake just at least be on watch after someone gaslights you once be on watch after someone is contemptuous and dismisses dismissive of you be on watch after a person is rageful and then tries to excuse it on the basis of a bad day be on watch being on watch means that you pay attention to determine if this is a pattern rather than just excusing and erasing it Second Chances turn into ten thousandth chances and a lifetime lost to the psychological abuse seen in narcissistic relationships number 10 surround yourself with good people I mean it seems like such basic guidance right but once narcissists start getting into your life they are like invasive weeds that choke out the good stuff in your garden narcissists as a rule demand all of your time and they get jealous when you give it to others they often prefer to isolate and control people so they can get steady supply and as a result you might find yourself giving 90 of yourself to the toxic person or people in your life giving you no bandwidth or time for the healthy people and that's not going to be good for you the healthy people are the ones who validate you who are sounding boards who do not Gaslight you who have your back who encourage you to pursue your dreams who have empathy compassion and kindness and listen to you and you do the same for them if you have just some of these good people in your life then you have one of the ultimate narcissist antidotes and often a way that now you have a way to find the strength to set the boundaries and cut off from the toxic people in your life if your garden is choked with narcissists and enablers we'd whack that out of there and start planting the healthy good people who have your back just as you have theirs and here's a bonus number 11. start getting comfortable with taking the less popular path it can be very lonely to be the one who sees the narcissist for who they are you may get called out for being judgmental or demanding or even difficult it may sometimes mean that you forego going to events or get-togethers so you do not need to over engage with the narcissist this is ultimately good for you even if you master the Fine Art of narcissistic repellents not engaging setting boundaries I got to tell you just being with them it's not good for you now learning how to gray rock is an important part of this and gray rocking with new narcissists that you meet works like a charm because they will become disinterested in you pretty quickly if you aren't providing them with validation the first time you meet them and I'm going to tell you it stinks it doesn't feel good to feel like you need to miss out from the dinner party because you because the narcissist is there but this all goes back to cultivating those healthier spaces those people out there who are calling you judgmental for not just going with the narcissistic flow they may very well be enablers sometimes you may you may need to go along and be with a toxic person it may be a dear friend's wedding or a close friend or family's birthday party or work event that you cannot skip out of but then you can do the usual work of boundaries however in general trust your gut going with the flow is how many people have lost lifetimes in these relationships I'm convinced that if you could even follow some of the things on this list you not only can become more resistant to The Narcissist in your life you may actually be able to close or at least tighten the gate against new toxic or difficult or narcissistic people getting in this is no joke these patterns appear to be on the rise out there and you need strong walls to protect yourself and to give yourself the time and space back that you need to invite healthy people and healthy experiences into your life you deserve that now listen I'm going I'm going to keep going with this here's a number 12 okay and here's number 12. one of the ultimate narcissist repellents is to have meaning and purpose in your life because even in the midst of the most dire awful narcissistic relationship if you have something that's meaningful and purposeful whatever it is and please promise me you will not share that with the narcissist because they will dismantle it and mock it and make fun of it and minimize it but whatever that meaning and purpose it is it might be through your work it might be through your children it could be volunteering it could be your spiritual life it could be a garden you plant it could be animals you rescue I don't know what gives you meaning and purpose but you better find it because I have to say when you have that even when you're stuck in something like this because some people can't get out of their narcissistic relationships somehow that gives more texture to your life that you can actually find a little bit of meaning not only in your life but even perhaps in the suffering that might be one of the the higher order things that you can achieve and a lot of people say I don't know how to find my meaning and purpose trust the process give yourself time and space to figure that out and as I bring this to a close listen I hit well I said I was going to hit 10 but I hit 12. I would love to hear from any of you what you think would be on top of this list things that could really be sort of narcissist repellent ways to protect yourself against narcissists getting in and to give you more strength in how to Bear up against a narcissist in your life let us share that let's turn this list of 12 into 20 or 50 or 100 because the more of these things we know the more we can fortify ourselves against the narcissists already in our lives and attempt to prevent even more from getting into our lives so let's talk about this why do I miss my narcissist a lot of people are so put off by this because they wonder why would I possibly miss somebody who has treated me so badly who discarded me who devalued me who was abusive to me why would I miss someone and the first place people go is like what's wrong with me I'm a twisted codependent there's something really wrong with me and they go there before you sort of throw yourself onto that heap of people who have done things so wrong with them it's actually very common to miss your narcissist so let's start with something this is actually we made another video about this it was this idea that think about how much time this relationship took the challenge with narcissistic relationships is how much time they took think about it it took time for you to think about them to ruminate about them to fix things to address arguments to wonder what they were going to be like when they got home to wonder what they were feeling to think if they were you spent more time trying to decode them when we have a video on that like why are narcissistic relationships so time consuming they were like a full-time job so when they're gone you realize that they fold up a lot of time and even though it was dysfunctional time it's almost like even if you leave an old a job you're like I have a lot of time on my hands and don't miss a job but then you might like I miss having something to do but you may not identify it as such but they do they took up so much space and in some ways that dysfunction was often quite familiar and it was almost intoxicating she's always like maybe today's the day I'm going to win them over it was almost like living like you lived in a casino with a bunch of slot machines nearby and you could play those machines every day it turns out just that the slot machine was your relationship so there was something very compelling and interesting and it was like you were constantly caught in this sort of game there's that piece of it is that you had so much to do all the time another piece of it is euphoric recall a big issue in these relationships is that you remember the good stuff and again we have another video on euphoric recall too but because of that euphoric recall you remember that one great night you had out and then the hotel guy sent you a bottle of wine and it was so perfect and God you remember that night you may not even remember earlier that day the massive fight you had or much later that night that he was texting the person he was cheating on you with or whatever it is you just remember that that one night I want more days like that I want my life to look like that and I'm like no you're forgetting what happened later and before but that euphoric recall means you literally cherry pick all those good moments and you miss those moments but what you forget is that it was embedded in this far far more horrible landscape of invalidation abuse and gaslighting you conveniently forget that it's for that reason that I often instruct people as part of their narcissistic abuse survivorship is that they actually wipe down every terrible thing that happened in the relationship so when they go to that place of euphoric recall they can go and they can look at it another reason you miss your narcissist so much can also relate to trauma bonding the fact of the matter is is that these relationships are very evocative of a dysfunctional relationship from your past typically that with your parents people from narcissistic family systems are particularly prone to trauma bonding and what ends up happening is that the loss of the narcissistic relationship it's almost like you're not just pulling the simple relation two people apart it's like you're pulling apart this big Tangled traumatic web from childhood and you're pulling all of that apart so now you almost feel like your Skin's getting pulled off it's painful and now you miss this familiarity you miss this thing you're embedded in that was so evocative of an earlier time of your life that's the other thing you miss what else do you miss you know what you miss you miss all that future faking stuff you were promised Someday I'm Gonna Change someday we're gonna this Someday I'm gonna that I know that down the line will this if we can just get to this than that you saw that future faking episode so you know that all of those big Promises Kept you in the game yeah yeah someday this and someday that and someday this and you you kind of missed that it was almost like you were always waiting and if you grew up in a family like that where it's always going to be like someday this and someday that you knew what it was like to always be waiting waiting waiting and there was Economist again this tense excitement in your life months years would go by and those things would never materialize and the disappointment would very quickly turn to despair the same thing happens in other narcissistic relationships but strangely you may miss those kinds of those moments those those moments of the things that were promised you missed the roller coaster remember relate narcissistic relationships are addictive roller coaster Cycles up down all around you remember it love bomb devalue discard Hoover up down up down up down unhealthy terrible toxic unhealthy but at the same time you also know it's addictive and talk to an addict talk to an addict 20 years out who has been clean and sober for 20 years and they will often say I can still taste it I can still feel it I still crave a drink 20 years out completely sober there are some things you miss and those addictive Cycles can actually play on your brain in that way that you yearn for them you long for them and you crave them so all of those things together come together and I think again probably the thing you miss most is this idea of Hope the Mastery you're going to get that you're one day going to win it's hard to think that getting out of the relationship was the win and in your more Lucid moment you're like yeah I won I'm not sitting here I'm not a quivering nerve I'm not always always afraid I'm not always anxious I'm not always fearful like this is really like this is good I feel better I'm pursuing my dreams I'm feeling happier your clear moments you feel like that it's been very interesting at this particular time in history we're at and years down the line I hope you still see this video and say oh that was interesting but at this particular time of Crisis more people are missing their narcissists than usual and that could very well be that at a time of anxiety and stress like this we often get pushed more into primitive places that's why people are also more likely to be eating foods from childhood listening to music from an earlier time of their life so there's things that kind of push us back like times of intense stress or transition that can also lead a person to miss a narcissist but do you really miss them you miss all those things I talk about but some people think I miss them maybe I made a mistake maybe it actually was a good relationship maybe I was the one who was in the wrong you go back to gaslighting yourself and believing their party line you don't miss it that's why you need to make that list I really want you to take a look at it do you miss being gaslighted do you miss being invalidated do you miss being devalued do you miss being cheated on do you miss being lied to do you miss those things because I'm guessing you probably don't miss those things I'm guessing that when you put that way you're like yeah no what oh God I'm glad I'm out of that and you have to be reminded I can think of a few times in my life he's in one professional narcissistic relationship in particular for a long time I would get caught in that this is back before phone so it's like we'd abused Post-its and I had all these Post-its around the whole perimeter of my computer screen of every terrible thing this person did I had to take a worse job after that and I'm like yeah nope yeah nope kind of loving this dude job you know so it really helped me move forward just to always see it in front of me you might even want to put it old school post it on your bathroom mirror just to see it and say yeah kind of glad this is done it is okay just because you missed this relationship miss this person doesn't mean you're going to get sucked back in doesn't mean you need to text them or reach out to them doesn't mean you made a mistake it means that these narcissistic relationships have a perverse way of getting into your mind and really really tangling up the works you don't really miss them you miss all of these other things that weren't good for you and again it's a little bit almost like an addict's brain a piece of that even relates to that when you realize that you start really saying like yeah no I don't miss them but this may be a wake-up call for me to do some of the work on me so I can learn to Value myself to really actualize myself and really push myself into a place where I'm less at risk of not only being dragged into this kind of relationship again but also even if I do encounter a person as narcissistic not fall for the same old tricks the fact of the matter is once you've seen The Gaslight once you should be able to resist The Gaslight going forward but you do need to be reminded of it just remind yourself remember it over and over again and when you do miss them recognize that it's just a little trick of the eye it's that little form of Twisted Nostalgia that gets all of us sometimes to waste money on things we don't need eat things we probably shouldn't and sometimes text people from our past that aren't good for us you don't miss them there's nothing wrong with you it's going to be okay don't let this little kind of mental hiccup trick you into getting sucked into the Vortex again so the question we're going to be tackling today is what type of therapy is best for recovery from narcissistic abuse a person may feel as though like okay I feel like I get this I understand narcissism now I feel like I understand narcissistic abuse but I don't know how to move forward from the rumination and all the rest of it this is such an important question and I agree at this point if you've been watching this channel long enough I gotta tell you most of you basically have the equivalent of a graduate degree in narcissism you probably know more than a lot of therapists you know what it is where it comes from how it impacts people what the Dynamics look like you get it request the bigger question people have I understand narcissism I understand narcissistic abuse the big question is what do I do about this as of now there is no one therapy for narcissistic abuse per se now in my work in this I've actually developed a model that I've found works really well with individuals who are recovering from narcissistic abuse and that really any therapist can use so let's start by taking on what a client needs in therapy what you need to sort of look for in therapy when you're trying to find a pathway to recover from narcissistic abuse number one you need a therapist who gets it at this point lots of therapists as of now don't and that's in large part because nothing even approximating this is taught in any graduate school or clinical training it's it's a relatively new area ironically these issues around difficult relationships and Trauma they've been around since forever but systematically addressing it from this perspective of focusing on narcissistic abuse is new and I got to tell you there's still lots of pushback from the mental health field there is still a tendency to be critical of a person who shows up to therapy and says that they have experienced narcissistic abuse more than a few therapists will say well diagnose your partner or your family member and that each person in a relationship is responsible for what is happening or that well we can't really say they're narcissistic because they're not here to share their point of view so let's just focus on your role in all of these problems or the therapist will say something like well all marriages are hard so I'd love to hear from you on that one drop a comment did any of you ever see a therapist that you felt didn't fully understand narcissism or narcissistic abuse what was some of the invalidation you may have experienced in therapy but it's absolutely important going back to this point that you need a therapist that understands the Dynamics of narcissism and of narcissistic relationships and does not engage in blaming you or pathologizing you when you are describing Dynamics such as gaslighting and love bombing and Trauma bonding and all the rest of it frankly you shouldn't have to be your therapist teacher while a therapist out there there are many many therapists out there may that don't position themselves as an expert in narcissism or narcissistic abuse one thing to keep in mind is that therapists who have a background in trauma or trauma-informed practices they often do understand the critical importance of principles such as validation and avoiding blame and such informed therapists understand that these kinds of patterns leave you confused and doubting yourself and then to give you the time and space you need to make sense of these toxic relationship Dynamics to grieve them and to figure out what you want to do and how best to cope number two you need a therapist who doesn't get so focused on the theory behind their treatment model for example cognitive behavioral therapy that they do not make space for The Unique aspects of narcissistic abuse as an example cognitive behavioral therapy is very much focused on teaching a person to change how they think with the intended effect of then changing how they behave now this may work and it works well when the behaviors are solely related to a person's belief but when you're working in the area of narcissistic abuse we need a framework around the narcissistic abuse right narcissism is resistant to change that gaslighting is a very real phenomenon because there is a risk of putting the onus on the person who is experiencing the narcissistic abuse to change how they think so you're going into therapy the therapist who's doing for example cognitive behavioral therapy will want to focus on changing how you think instead of teaching the client that no matter how how no matter how you think you experiencing narcissistic abuse no matter how much you think that being gaslighted and manipulated feels awful and there's nothing you can do to change the other person's Behavior there has to be education and contextualizing of narcissistic abuse in any form of therapy before turning solely to principles like you need to change how you think you can change how you think until forever that ain't gonna stop someone from gaslighting you number three you've got to avoid therapeutic situations where keeping the relationship together is such a strong part of the agenda some couples therapists or people who are solely relationship focused or pastorally or religiously informed counselors are very very invested in the idea that the only desirable outcome short of it being physically dangerous is making the relationship work and that that's the best possible goal the problem with that is that that does not account for the toxic and the unchanging dynamics of a narcissistic relationship and may Foster guilt a sense of failure and a sense of self-blame number four as I noted above if you ever I should have noted earlier I should say number four as I noted earlier if you can't find an expert in narcissistic abuse look for therapists who focus on trauma trauma-informed therapists understand how to work with people who have been through a traumatic and fear-inducing and frankly confusing experience from a place of validation safety support and with a whole full understanding of how trauma affects the nervous system and the person holistically that perspective can be really really useful as a part of being treated for narcissistic abuse and Trauma therapists are really on top of ensuring that a person doesn't blame themselves for something that happened to them number five it's important you work with someone who has a wider understanding of grief healing from narcissistic abuse is a deep dive into grief and not how we usually think of grief for the dead but grief for experiences that have been missed and lost grief over loss of Hope grief over loss of time and a therapist using a grief recovery format can and on top of it if they also understand the Dynamics of narcissism that can be really useful number six the nice thing to keep in mind is that the techniques that work with survivors of narcissistic abuse they are what it's there's a word I'm going to use is we're going to call it trans theoretical this framework a framework that works with clients who are going through narcissistic abuse can be used by a therapist regardless of whatever their theoretical orientation is you might find a therapist who's psychodynamic or humanistic or cognitive behavioral or eclectic it just requires that the therapist understand the natural history of the narcissistic relationship the rigid and unchanging nature of narcissistic personalities and other themes like cognitive dissonance and Trauma bonding and the things that happen to a person who has experienced a narcissistic relationship and to see it in that context so any therapist can do this work if they're willing to see it for what it is number seven it's important that you the therapist be able to work from a culturally informed perspective to be able to wholly understand narcissistic abuse and what it does to a person does require a therapist who understands the more nuanced issues and the important issues around race ethnicity social class gender sexual identity lgbtq plus identity religion nationality ableism age because this stuff matters in understanding what people experience outside of the room and the cultural barriers and the other barriers that exist to being helped to being heard and to getting stuck in these relationship Cycles if a person is already being gaslighted by The World At Large it makes the gaslighting in their individual relationship feel actually a lot worse number eight try to avoid or con you know reconsider a therapist that makes your therapy their story while I do acknowledge that having been through narcissistic abuse definitely gives a therapist an informed and empathic perspective every Survivor story I've ever heard has been different for example things that worked for me and parts of my story they may not work for you or even be relevant to you therapy is your space your story your experience and if they doubt your experience based on theirs or give you advice based on theirs or say well this is what happened in my story I may not be such a good fit for you their perspective could be usually could be useful for a minute but your therapy is not meant to be a space to to sort of share their heroic narcissistic abuse Survivor tale or their narrative you may want to hear it but beyond that it's your time number nine just because a therapist describes themselves on a website or someplace else as a narcissistic abuse recovery expert doesn't always necessarily mean they'll be a good fit for you they may be a good therapist for someone else but if it doesn't feel good for you it doesn't feel good for you it's also a possibility they've called themselves an expert but they aren't there are no right now we're still working on the credentialing around this but be sure that in whatever whoever you see for therapy you feel safe or heard because there's a lot of therapists out there who don't call themselves narcissist narcissistic abuse experts and there actually could be a really great fit for you other people like I said may call themselves this kind of an expert and you don't really like them after going through narcissistic abuse people don't always trust their instincts let this be the day and let this be the process that leads you to starting to trust yours if a therapy experience doesn't feel good you have the right to step away and find another therapist don't worry about hurting the therapist's feelings number 10 consider rounding out therapy with support groups but choose carefully some support groups may not be well moderated so if the group doesn't feel right or safe don't ever feel compelled to stick it out but having safe good well-moderated peer spaces and supportive spaces can be useful to your healing and growth and help you kind of derive strength and belonging from recognizing other people have been through this number 11 you gotta do work between sessions I am one of many that strongly encourages journaling list making rituals routines cleaning out toxic folks reading getting educated mindfulness this is about a change in your whole life and while therapy is important the 167 hours or the work between sessions is in crucially important as well I'd love to have you drop a comment what are some of the things those of you who are sort of really doing the work to push back on narcissistic abuse what's the work that you you've done between sessions that's helped you number 12 be wary of anyone who says they'll snap you back into shape from narcissistic abuse in six weeks or some set amount of time healing is personal there is no schedule it's always a process some people take months some people take years and that's fine number 13. work with the therapist who helps you identify any other issues that you may be experiencing such as anxiety depression substance use disordered eating and then helps you and works with you to manage them alongside the narcissistic abuse patterns that you are experiencing the narcissistic abuse is interlinked with the other stuff you're going through and both issues need to be addressed simultaneously it's not as simple as oh once we treat your anxiety we'll Circle back and we'll talk about that narcissistic abuse interdependent have to be dealt with together now ultimately when it comes to therapy for narcissistic abuse as of now again now now it's time for us to start doing the research but there is no sort of singular model that works best but a good Model includes trauma-informed practices Trust not being blamed or invalidated by the therapist for example if anyone ever asks you the question why did you stay so long no no no no good therapy includes grief work education about the patterns of narcissism specifically as to how they're relevant to your situation awareness regarding Dynamics such as gaslighting and how to fortify and strengthen yourself techniques to address rumination awareness about the intersectional and cultural issues that are relevant specifically to you gender race you name it and awareness of Psychosocial issues like domestic violence or Elder issues or custody issues and connection to awareness of resources that could be useful your therapist doesn't have to be an expert on this they just need to know that these are important things to to seek out or even get consultation for themselves to help you this whole world of narcissistic abuse is a complex and evolving space and I'm telling you with this again as a last thought I'm going to repeat this if the therapeutic relationship doesn't feel good then leave not all of us are a perfect match for every client it's very hard for survivors of narcissistic abuse to Value themselves enough to say that a given therapist doesn't feel right but sometimes it doesn't and it's important to find someone who works for you you deserve at least that much all of this is a process most people come out of this wiser stronger a bit battle scarred but remember what Rumi says about those wounds right those wounds are where the light enters us so let therapy be a place of self-advocacy for you of resilience building of addressing what has harmed and hurt you let it be a place that is designed to help you but never to blame you or shame you so let's talk a little bit about the the pattern of grief that is such a classical part of narcissistic abuse this to me grief may be one of the most difficult of all of the patterns The Fallout if you will of narcissistic abuse I will be doing a series on Grief after the loss of a narcissistic relationship in a few months but for now I want to break down some of the brass tacks of narcissistic relationship grief here because it is such a classical part this the sense of grief of what a person going through a narcissistic relationship goes through so for now I'm really going to talk about grief as an artifact of narcissistic abuse grief is a response to loss we traditionally think of it in terms of death but it can also be the loss of a relationship for example a divorce we might see grief in the face of the loss of a job the loss of a home and we even can observe grief reactions during major transitions for example a person moving to a new city or a new country and leaving their home behind grief is a part of The Human Experience and psychologists have been writing about it since there was psychology and humans have been experiencing guilt since there were humans we build rituals around grief and every culture has some sort of system every religion is some sort of system it uses to manage this experience of grief we go through an experience called bereavement that's a part of brief which can feel like depression it's a part of a natural part of the process of Letting Go and during the bereavement period people are generally quite sad but the grief of narcissistic abuse or associated with narcissistic abuse is very difficult because usually no one's dead and the belief is that you should be relieved for example that the relationship is done but still you're sad what are you grieving when you're experiencing narcissistic abuse you're grieving lots of stuff you're grieving what you believed would have been or could have been in this relationship you're grieving your childhood you're grieving your loss of trust you're grieving your loss of faith in other human beings you're grieving your lost opportunities you are grieving the idea you had about what life could be about and what love could be about you're grieving your belief that the world is fair and just and that is a lot to grieve if you experienced any form of narcissistic abuse as a child you didn't understand that it was grief that was a part of what you were experiencing even as a child a childhood with a narcissistic parent can be chronically disappointing largely because the narcissistic individual puts his or her needs ahead of everyone else so there can be missed activities missed deadlines missed school events missed everything that's the stuff of childhood but there's also grief of that significant developmental window this can result in a sense of melancholy that wafts through a childhood a Melancholy that is all too familiar to survivors of narcissistic abuse it's a heaviness that we all carry in US you'll see that lifelong survivors of narcissistic abuse smile but there's a sadness that lurks right behind it however other survivors often typically see it and get it in adulthood decisions around maintaining relationships with your narcissistic parent or parents can get quite complicated their presence can sometimes trigger a sense of grief the childhood loss the relationship you had wanted to have with a parent and since they probably didn't get it when you're a kid and probably aren't going to get it now the same gaslighting and passive aggressive barbs continue to characterize your relationship it's as though you play the grief over and over again every time you see them in adult relationships with with a partner spouse it can be quite similar the relationship is or was quite miserable and yet you grieve it when it's done this is a classical part of narcissistic abuse and a confusing one when a relationship ends many people will mistake this sense of grief and think oh no maybe I made a mistake I'm grieving this and I can have it back and then you fall back in remember that a lot of narcissistic relationship happens in your head you try to you try to convince yourself that things were better than they actually were and you can start believing that pseudo-reality and grieve the story that you made up in your head the grief elements of narcissistic abuse are often experienced similarly to the depression piece as well as other elements of narcissistic abuse sadness regret confusion anger lots of negative mood States but the confusion is the yearning that can still be there for you around that relationship odds are that the yearning you're experiencing is for things that either didn't exist in the relationship the fantasy that you had to construct about the relationship or are related to the trauma Bond and The Addictive compulsion to get back into it and neither of those patterns are healthy healthy grief is a natural process that resolves over time especially when there is support there's a recent video I did on what happens when a narcissist in your life dies and I talk about the complicated grief and the confusion that happens when someone with whom you've had such a complicated relationship with actually passes on but the grief of narcissistic abuse happens whether the narcissist is alive or not it's less about grieving the actual person and in some ways becomes even more about grieving the hope you had had for that particular relationship the time you may have lost to it and the pieces of yourself you gave up to it so what do you do in the face of grief first always remember that grief is a natural process of Letting Go support it support it through therapy through support groups ideally for support groups designed for survivors of narcissistic abuse other techniques such as mindfulness meditation and meaningful activities in your life second don't let the grief confuse you it isn't a sign that you did the wrong thing but rather it's a natural process of Letting Go and in case in the case of narcissistic abuse a complicated process of letting go third if the grief starts to careen into more substantial symptoms of depression or anxiety then you must pay attention and do must consider therapy because the key to addressing negative emotional symptoms such as depression and anxiety are to catch it early or at a minimum please consult your primary health care provider fourth please consider journaling it's a good process to see how you're slowly letting this relationship go over time there will definitely be good days and bad days triggered days and easier days but over time if you can witness the Improvement it can substantiate your commitment to growth and letting go fifth there are really no true do-overs in life there's no reset button so acceptance becomes key it can be painful to reflect on a childhood that might have been lost to narcissistic abuse or 20 or 30 or 40 years spent in a toxic marriage no you can't bring that time back by rumination but a big part of the resolution of grief is acceptance this is your life story and it's rich and it's beautiful and you learned a lot if you've survived narcissistic abuse you are actually stronger than most people take that strength and use that time that you have in front of you see it as a gift and please use it well so I'm going to talk to you about something that's very very interesting people who are narcissistic relationships are often struck about where the grief hits them they'll just be kind of reading a book and a very common one is watching something and they'll be surprised by it so this is really going to take that on the surprising place that narcissistic grief can sneak up on you okay and again this is a very interesting phenomenon I've noticed the grief over a narcissistic relationship is a very very unique grief okay so it's not the sort of grief of what we typically associate with loss like we'd see as someone dying or relationship ending or losing a job it's not even the grief of losing something like a like a house burning down or a car getting totaled or losing stuff in a burglary or in a robbery which are losses which can lead to grief the grief of a narcissistic relationship is something more unique it's the loss of a narrative a loss of Innocence it's the loss it can be the loss of a family a loss of Hope a loss of what you hoped life could be a loss of time a loss of potential a loss of opportunity people waste years in these relationships and then once they see it clearly regret all that had been lost people maintained narratives about happy families they they would wonder they would wonder why there was an incongruence you know a disconnect between what they so desperately wanted to be true and what the situation in front of them actually was and that moment of recognition is characterized by grief these are losses but because they are losses you carry in your heart in your mind and in your soul that they may not look like losses to people around you and you may go through this bizarre experience of grief that you don't even identify as grief so that's why so many people going through this saying I feel like I'm losing my mind I'm like no it's actually grief now what this video takes on is how this grief sneaks up on you in a very very interesting and surprising way comes up when you're watching a movie or a TV show it's amazing how often I have talked with many many survivors of narcissistic relationships and narcissistic abuse who will talk about how a scene in a movie or show that I don't know the scene in the movie or the show isn't even really that consequential that the Survivor will actually find themselves tearful and really sad and not be able to hold those tears back for example it may be a scene in which a mother is deeply empathic toward a child or a father is very loving towards their family it could be any number of compassionate scenes from a marriage but what catches people who have been through narcissistic relationships by by surprise is the strength the the how how overpowered they feel and the strength of their reaction especially to scenes that weren't even meant to be that evocative in fact some people have said they were actually a little bit embarrassed because the scene which made them cry wasn't actually I don't the probably not even intended to be a tear-jerker scene but in the context of their lives of their unique griefs that the simple Act of maybe kindness or Sacrifice by a character in a film a person playing a partner or a parent represented something they so desperately yearned for and finally recognized that they would never get and would be watching that all play out and a story and just almost amplifying the thing that was missing from their lives if you have experienced narcissistic abuse just take a minute I'd love for you to think about the last scene in a show or a movie that really got to you and it wasn't the usual kind of tear-jerker scene and actually if you want drop that in the comments like yeah the scene was from this particular movie and pay attention to what that scene was about because actually the tear-jerker scene and what evokes this from you could give you some real insight into your grief someone was actually recently sharing with me a scene in a film in which the lead character was a young woman and the young woman had a deeply like sort of really warm empathic connected relationship with her father and the father had a really wonderful sense of humor he was empathic he was available and he made sacrifices for his family and for his children without drawing attention to them he wasn't a victim nothing like that in an actual relatively ordinary scene inconsequential scene in this movie when the father brought a little birthday cake to the daughter on her the morning of her birthday this person was telling me she started crying and people were looking at her strangely and then she remembered crying again when there was a scene where the father sacrificed an important opportunity he had for himself he sacrificed it in favor of his son and she said she just couldn't stop crying and she was caught off guard by her reaction to these scenes and even though she had given up on her own relationship with her narcissistic father a long time ago the potency of the reaction after all these years as it came through the film struck her and it's interesting because she was also going through a narcissistically abusive intimate relationship but the never-ending grief of wishing it had been something different with her father of wondering what a life with a non-rageful empathic giving an open-hearted father who really saw her she wondered what would that be like to recognize that she would go through this life without ever knowing that experience that's grief and as she beautifully put it most days she didn't even think about it and even cross her mind she just sort of her father had his life he made almost no attempt to even maintain any kind of relationship with her whatsoever and she herself had her own full life but the grief was there hidden in a way and reactivated through a simple story of a father and a daughter in a film and it wasn't even supposed to be a father-daughter film that was really sort of a Sideline Story in the film it's interesting when I think about the last time I cried during a TV show it was actually during an absolutely absurd absurd comedy show and as the series comes to an end these characters who had actually been really treated horribly and bullied by other people throughout the course of the series they got very very happy endings and they succeeded on their own terms and really authentically I watched this last episode I started crying and my children because this is the comedy show looked at me as though I had literally lost my mind this was not meant to be a poignant scene so as I went to bed that night I wondered what was it that made me so weepy at such a silly scene and I had to say that I recognized that identified identified with the scene I identified with being told no and this idea that you're never going to make it or who Do You Think You Are and these characters they retained their Good Humor all the way through the series and for once for one damn time Karma worked out the way you hope it does because these characters were so so sweet and maybe in my case that's the toll of working on narcissistic abuse because so rarely in the lives of the folks I work with the story rarely ends up fair maybe it wasn't about the happy ending of this silly show that made me cry but it was actually the fact that it was a just ending because again that is so rarely how it ends up for survivors of narcissistic abuse they survivors of narcissistic abuse always have to look past the seeming Injustice the actual Injustice of the situation and find a way to tell the story of their life in this relationship so it feels endurable and finds some meaning in the grief because I do grieve for the unfairness that is narcissistic abuse and see the ongoing toll it takes on people who really do almost grieve that sense of justice so that said I ask it again have you ever found yourself crying at an unexpected time in a movie not the tearjerker that gets everyone but that scene just like that silly scene I'm telling you about that really got you by surprise what was that show and maybe even what was that scene and was it a place that gave you a glimpse into your narcissistic grief

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 307,658

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Id: oggyM7sXF0E

Length: 63min 59sec (3839 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 20 2022